TechFlow News: On March 13, according to CoinDesk, a user incurred approximately $50 million in losses while executing a single token swap via the Aave interface due to extremely low liquidity in the relevant pool, resulting in severe slippage.
On-chain data shows that the user attempted to swap roughly $50.43 million worth of aEthUSDT for aEthAAVE via CoW Protocol. Because the corresponding trading pool had extremely limited liquidity, the transaction suffered over 99% slippage. Ultimately, the user received only about 327 aEthAAVE—valued at approximately $36,000—while the remainder of the value was rapidly captured by arbitrage bots and network intermediaries.
Aave founder Stani Kulechov stated that the interface issued multiple warnings to the user regarding the abnormal slippage prior to execution and required explicit risk acknowledgment via a checkbox confirmation; the user completed this confirmation on a mobile device. He added that the CoW Swap router operated as expected and in line with industry standards, though the outcome was “clearly far from ideal.”
Kulechov noted that Aave plans to contact the affected user and refund approximately $600,000 in protocol fee revenue generated from this transaction.
