Terraform Labs said that UST, Terra’s ill-fated “decentralized” stablecoin, would stay pegged to the price of $1 solely as a result of a state-of-the-art “algorithm.” That algorithm – which was codified in blockchain-based computer code called smart contracts – was supposed to print and burn luna, UST’s speculative sister token, to serve as a sort of shock absorber for UST’s price.