An emerging stablecoin with a recent market cap approaching $1 billion has diverged dangerously from its US dollar peg — calling its very existence into question.

USDN, the stablecoin of the Waves blockchain ecosystem, is supposed to be worth $1, but as of Monday at 5:15 pm ET, it traded for just 81 cents.

USDN, or Neutrino USD, is considered an algorithmic stablecoin because its supply can expand and contract by burning or minting WAVES, the native token of the proof-of-stake Waves protocol.

The price also impacts the yield users earn on USDN in the Vires Finance dApp, Waves’ money market protocol — similar to Compound or Aave on Ethereum. As WAVES increases in value, so does interest earned by depositors.

A pseudonymous DeFi analyst, going by the username 0xHamz, alleged that Waves was using the USDN minting process, combined with Vires, to artificially inflate both the price of WAVES and the supply of USDN.

Waves Founder and Lead Developer Sasha Ivanov is moving to an advisory role with development responsibility shifting to a new US company, Waves Labs, the company said.