Solana Stablecoin USX Crashes to $0.10 in Liquidity-Driven Depeg

The crisis unfolded when blockchain security firm PeckShield raised an alert regarding a severe liquidity drain on trading platforms supporting USX. This drain caused the stablecoin’s price to plummet to $0.10, a 90% deviation from its intended $1.00 peg. In response, Solstice, the developer behind USX, moved quickly to contain the fallout. The team issued a statement on social media platform X, emphasizing a critical distinction: the issue was isolated to secondary markets. They asserted that the funds backing USX in its primary system were “entirely unaffected and >100% collateralized” and that 1:1 redemptions through their primary market mechanism remained fully operational.

The stabilization effort involved Solstice and its designated market makers injecting fresh liquidity into the strained secondary markets. This intervention succeeded in pulling the price back to approximately $0.94. However, the damage was already recorded. According to data from CoinGecko, the crash established a new all-time low for USX at $0.8285. While the stablecoin has since returned near its target, trading around $0.995 with only a minor 0.3% 24-hour decline, the dramatic intraday swing—from the low of $0.8285 to a subsequent high of $1.01—graphically illustrates the extreme volatility unleashed by the temporary liquidity shortfall.

The USX depeg is not an isolated incident but part of a recurring narrative of vulnerability within certain stablecoin designs when subjected to secondary market pressures. It finds echoes in other significant depegs that have marked the cryptocurrency landscape in 2025. For instance, in April, Synthetix’s sUSD stablecoin fell below $0.70 following protocol changes that altered its collateral mechanics. The event was met with dark humor by Synthetix founder Kain Warwick, who temporarily renamed his social media account to “kain.depeg.”

More recently, in November, Stream Finance’s XUSD stablecoin crashed to $0.30 after the protocol disclosed a staggering $93 million loss incurred by an external fund manager. The USX event differs fundamentally from these cases because its underlying collateral was not compromised; Solstice maintains the backing remained over 100%. This frames the USX collapse purely as a secondary market liquidity failure, a distinction that highlights how market structure can fail independently of fundamental asset backing.

In the aftermath of the crash, Solstice has committed to obtaining a third-party attestation report. Market observers interpret this move as a direct attempt to rebuild shaken investor trust by providing external validation of their collateral claims. The need for such reassurance underscores the deep skepticism that follows any major depegging event, regardless of the stated cause.

For the wider cryptocurrency community and investors, the repeated depegs of 2025—from sUSD to XUSD and now USX—serve as a stark, ongoing reminder of the embedded risks. These events demonstrate that stability is not guaranteed merely by verifiable on-chain assets. The architecture of liquidity provision, the behavior of market makers, and the confidence of traders on secondary platforms are equally critical, and sometimes more fragile, components. As the sector evolves, the USX incident underscores that achieving true price stability requires robust solutions that address both collateral integrity and market microstructure resilience.