Anchor [ANC]: Troubling days ahead amid deteriorating deposit-lending volumes

It is rare to see week-long ecosystem growth, on one hand, followed by a week-long drop in prices on the other. But that has been the case with Anchor as it rose to, correction fell to become the leader of the biggest losers this week.

Someone dropped the Anchor

ANC fell by 32.72% from where it was this time seven days ago, and while the broader market cues can be blamed for the most part, its investors’ apprehension has also contributed to the present conditions. On 11 April alone, the token dropped by 20.29%.

Although the total value locked on the network did note a significant rise in the last couple of days, the most important one came from its partnership with Acala to boost the decentralized stablecoin space on Terra and Polkadot. 

Acala will be expanding Anchor’s collateral options with the addition of Liquid DOT (LDOT) and Liquid KSM (LKSM), which will unlock the latent borrowing demand for TerraUSD (UST) stablecoin within the Acala and Kusama ecosystem.

Acala further explained how they would be utilizing aUSD for the same purpose saying,

“Acala & Anchor will also establish deep liquidity pools for aUSD (The native decentralized stablecoin of Polkadot & Kusama) & UST on Acala, serving as a gateway into the Polkadot ecosystem for UST users.”

Thus this way, the partnership represents a significant milestone in uniting the Terra and Polkadot ecosystems to bring decentralized money to the masses. And at the same provide users with access to more liquidity and yield opportunities.

Furthermore, the protocol’s native token ANC was also listed on Crypto.com this week.

But regardless, Anchor’s primary function as a lending protocol failed to draw in any substantial investment as the Anchor Treasury continues to deplete with about $8.86 million left in it as of today. 

Anchor Treasury | Source: Dune – AMBCrypto

This shows that while payouts continue to roll, the revenue generated by the protocol on the lending markets is in a consistent decline which raises concern for the protocol’s future, given it was recently replenished with $450 million by the Luna Foundation Guard.

This is also verified by the growing difference between deposits and borrowing, which went from $6 billion to $10 billion within the span of a month. Thus it seems like, on a broader scale, things aren’t really getting better for the protocol.

Anchor deposit and borrow difference | Source: Dune – AMBCrypto