Miss this warning and you too could lose 99.9% in one swap while Ethereum bots walk away with the rest

A crypto trader lost over $50 million in Aave-wrapped USDT on March 12 after sending a single large order through the DeFi lending protocol's swap interface and clearing a slippage warning on a mobile device. Data from Etherscan shows the wallet swapped $50.43 million aEthUSDT for 327.24 aEthAAVE through CoW Protocol in Ethereum block 24,643,151. At the current AAVE price of $111.52, the returned tokens were worth roughly $36,100, leaving an implied loss of about $49.96 million relative to the original order size. The trade drew immediate attention across crypto markets because of its scale and because it moved through one of decentralized finance’s largest venues. Aave is the largest DeFi lending protocol with over $1 trillion in total cumulative lending. Following the incident, Aave revealed plans to contact the affected user and return about $600,000 in fees collected from the transaction. CoW Protocol said it would also refund any fees sent to CoW DAO. Related Reading Crypto liquidity crisis causes major price slippages during sell-offs – Kaiko The liquidity concentration issues got worse since the launch of spot Bitcoin ETFs in the US, adding risks of sharp weekend price swings. Aug 12, 2024 · Gino Matos Who is the victim? Blockchain analytics platform Lookonchain said the wallet behind the swap may belong to Garrett Jin, a popular crypto trader known as the BitcoinOG1011short. Lookonchain said on-chain tracing identified 13 wallets that may belong to Jin. It said those wallets received USDC or USDT from Binance on Feb. 16 and Feb. 20, then became active again on Thursday and moved funds to two new wallets. One of those wallets, Lookonchain said, shared the same Binance deposit address as Garrett Jin. The claim drew significant attention because Jin has already been linked to other large, closely watched crypto trades. Last October, online sleuths tied him to a $735 million short position on Bitcoin opened through Hyperliquid shortly before President Donald ...