A stablecoin is supposed to be worth $1. Someone found the mint function. It's now worth $0.002. Balance Coin (BLC), a dollar-pegged algorithmic stablecoin on BNB Chain, collapsed 99% in hours yesterday. Not because the market sold off. Because an attacker minted roughly 4.5 million BLC out of a null address, backed by nothing, and swapped them through PancakeSwap for real USDT and BTCB. Total extracted: around $915,000. But it is not about the size of the exploit; it is about the mechanism. This was not a depeg in the usual sense. 👉 No bank run 👉 No liquidity crisis 👉 No loss of confidence that spiralled It was simply a counterfeit. Someone printed the currency, sold the fake units for real ones, and the flood of unbacked supply did the rest. The peg didn't break under pressure. It was never enforceable in the first place, because the supply could be conjured. That is the defining weakness of an algorithmic stablecoin, stated as plainly as it ever gets. A fiat-backed coin is worth a dollar because a dollar sits in a bank. An algorithmic coin is worth a dollar because the code says so. Which means it is worth exactly as much as the integrity of the code that controls its supply. One unlocked mint permission, and the dollar becomes a suggestion. A stablecoin whose supply can be minted is not a stablecoin. It is a promise that will only be kept until someone finds the mint function.