What Is a Stablecoin Depeg?

A depeg happens when a stablecoin trades clearly away from the value it is built to hold, most often one US dollar. Below the peg is a discount; above it is a premium.

Measure the gap as a percentage: price minus peg, divided by peg. Prices wobble by small fractions all the time, so this guide uses no fixed cutoff; where a depeg begins is a convention, not a rule.

Read each price with its observation time and venue; one token can differ slightly across platforms at once.

The peg is a promise, and the price shows how far holders believe it. The Bank for International Settlements notes that an issuer holding reserve assets with some credit or liquidity risk cannot assure stability in every situation. Typical triggers:

• Doubt about the reserve: its quality, its location, or the issuer's access to it.
• Limited or paused redemption, so tokens cannot be turned into dollars at par.
• A fast fall in the value of collateral behind the token.
• A design resting on confidence or on returns paid to holders instead of reserves.
• Heavy selling in a thin market.

Fiat-reserve coins, such as USDT and USDC, hold cash and short-term government securities, among other assets. The risk sits in the reserve's quality and custody and in the issuer's redemption terms.

Crypto-collateralized coins, such as DAI, are created against crypto locked in vaults worth more than the debt, with liquidation if that cushion shrinks. Their risk sits in collateral prices, in other stablecoins inside the collateral mix, and in smart contract and oracle faults.

Algorithmic coins rely on rules and incentives instead of reserves. Several have lost their peg.

Redemption largely holds a peg in place. If a token trades below $1 and a participant can hand it to the issuer for a dollar, acquiring tokens at a discount and redeeming them pulls the price back toward $1.

That route is narrower than many holders assume. The Federal Reserve describes USDC minting and redemption as generally limited to a select group of institutional participants; most individuals can only trade on secondary markets. Tether's website says direct redemption needs a verified account and, as of October 12, 2026, a minimum of 100,000 US dollars.

When the direct route is closed or doubted, selling pressure lands on the market alone. In March 2023, Circle paused primary operations over a weekend, citing US bank working hours, while exchange trading continued.

May 2022, TerraUSD. The Federal Reserve's November 2022 Financial Stability Report says this algorithmic coin, worth about $18 billion, collapsed completely within days. It described the coin as largely lacking assets behind its value. The report adds that Tether briefly traded significantly below its peg.

March 2023, USDC. On March 10, 2023, Circle said it could not withdraw $3.3 billion of reserves, about 8% of more than $40 billion, from Silicon Valley Bank. A Federal Reserve note puts the secondary-market low at 86 cents, with recovery on March 13 after a joint federal announcement on March 12 and the resumption of redemptions. DAI, though still overcollateralized, fell with USDC through its Peg Stability Module.

Redemption is the legal side of the peg. In the European Union, Article 49 of the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) requires e-money token issuers to redeem at par value at any time on request, without a fee. Those rules have applied since June 30, 2024.

In the United States, the GENIUS Act, approved on July 18, 2025, requires payment stablecoin issuers to publish a redemption policy with procedures for timely redemption. The Act takes effect on the earlier of January 18, 2027, or 120 days after final implementing regulations.

A legal duty is not an open door for every holder: access still runs through issuer terms, such as the verified account and minimum that Tether's website states above. Reserve rules are covered in the guide to what a stablecoin is.

Each stablecoin page, such as Tether, USDC and Dai, shows the market price in US dollars with its observation time. The price is not rounded to $1.

The pages show no separate deviation figure, so apply the formula to the price and its time. The stablecoin filter on the crypto list groups these coins.