CASE 03 / INVESTIGATE THE DEPEG
The stablecoin is trading at $0.96. What happened?
Investigate three fictional dollar-token cases. Open the evidence, diagnose the discount, then compare redemption, a market sale and the issuer’s balance sheet.
Follow the case.
- Inspect the evidence
Read reserve coverage, access to assets, redemption conditions and market depth separately. A reserve statement and a market quote answer different questions.
- Choose a diagnosis
Distinguish an access problem, a backing shortfall and thin secondary liquidity. The explanation responds to your prediction and identifies the evidence that matters.
- Compare an exit
Model an approved or ineligible holder, request redemption or sell into the stated bids. Switch between holder and issuer views to see which balances change.
- Read an update
An authored next-day update shows why restored access, replacement capital and deeper market bids are different developments. No future price is predicted.
The scenario controls load with JavaScript. The explanation, checklist and model boundaries remain available below.
TAKE IT WITH YOU
The question to keep asking.
Ask four separate questions: what is recoverable, what is accessible now, who can redeem, and what can actually sell at the quoted price?
YOUR PRACTICAL CHECKLIST
- Identify the target unit and the actual redemption entitlement.
- Compare recoverable reserve value with total outstanding claims.
- Check which assets and payment channels are accessible now.
- Check your own eligibility, costs and timing for each exit route.
- Inspect market depth; do not treat a quoted price as a full-balance exit.
- Separate a failed or delayed payout from a permanent loss of backing.
Model boundaries & mechanism sources
- All issuers, balances, prices, bids and next-day events are fictional. The three cases describe simplified reserve-backed dollar claims, not every stablecoin mechanism or a named issuer.
- Each case starts with 1,000 holder tokens and 1,000,000 total claims. One claim requests one dollar through an eligible, open redemption channel. Legal priorities and insolvency recovery rates are excluded.
- The $0.96 quote is an authored market observation, not calculated from reserve coverage. A venue has bids for 250 tokens at that price and charges a fictional 0.5% sale fee. Unmatched tokens remain with the holder.
- A successful redemption reduces reserve assets and token claims equally. A secondary sale transfers tokens to another holder without changing issuer reserves or total supply.
- Every exit button replays from the same initial snapshot. The next-day branch changes only the facts expressly described; reading it does not sell or redeem anything.
- The eligibility switch models a customer who has already qualified. It is not a real application, permission or assurance that a token holder can directly redeem.
FOLLOW THE CONNECTIONS