The collapse of the terrausd stablecoin caught the market by surprise. For people who saw terra as a more secure asset, they are now dealing with the aftermath as they let go of assets to try and make up for their lost nest eggs.

A Wall Street Journal report on Friday told the stories of several investors. One doctor explained how the fall of terrausd is affecting his family’s future.

Keith Baldwin, a 44-year-old surgeon who lives outside New Bedford, Mass. saved $ 177,000 during the past decade. Last year he took his savings and bought USD coin, putting it in a crypto account that paid a 9 % annual yield.

More than 90 % of his savings vanished in a few days when terrausd lost its peg to the dollar. stablegains, the startup that managed the account, was converting his USD coin holdings into terrausd.

Dr. Baldwin learned that terrausd’s troubles were threatening his nest egg. He scrambled to withdraw his funds from stablegains. By the time they landed at the Kraken crypto exchange, the coin was trading at just 14 cents.

Dr. Baldwin had hoped to spend the money on a house. Now he has been cutting back on expenses so he can still save for his children’s education.

People in Argentina, Venezuela, Iran, Iraq, and Nigeria looked at the stablecoin as a way to store their funds that could deal with inflation better than their often-volatile local currency. Many of them reported learning about the stablecoin from YouTube, and said they believed in its safety because it was traded on popular exchanges like binance.

One woman from Buenos Aires lost all of her savings in the crash. The piece quotes a man from Pakistan saying,’I have nothing left, not even a penny’.

Terra and its sister token Luna were supposed to keep UST’s value pinned at $ 1. For every 1 UST created, $ 1 worth of Luna is destroyed, and the same in reverse.

Ust promised annual returns of nearly 20 percent because it would loan out your money to someone else in return for collateral. Both the deposits and interest were in UST. The value of UST and Luna fell after an unusually large transaction sparked a death spiral.

Both terra and Luna are close to a relaunch in an attempt to rebrand their company blockchain. It will change the original currency’s names to terra classic and Luna classic.

The crypto industry is showing clear signs of instability. Venture capitalists with nowhere else to go are continuing to invest billions in drastic moves.