- A trader attempting to swap roughly US$50.4M (AU$71.06M) in USDT for AAVE confirmed a warning about extreme slippage and completed the trade through Aave’s interface.
- The transaction was routed via CoW Protocol and multiple DeFi pools, ultimately hitting a SushiSwap pool with only about US$73K in liquidity.
- The trade returned only 324 AAVE tokens, prompting Aave to attempt contacting the user and offer to refund about US$600K in fees.
A cryptocurrency trader attempting to execute a US$50 million (AU$70.5 million) token swap has instead received just a few hundred AAVE tokens after confirming a warning about severe slippage during the transaction.
The trade involved approximately US$50.4 million (AU$71.06 million) in USDT and was carried out through the Aave decentralised finance platform on 13 March 2026. On-chain data indicates the wallet had previously obtained the funds from Binance around 20 days earlier before depositing them into the protocol and initiating the swap.
Before execution, Aave’s interface displayed a warning highlighting the unusually large size of the order and the potential for extreme slippage. Aave founder Stani Kulechov said the platform required the user to confirm the risk by selecting a checkbox before the transaction could proceed. After the warning was acknowledged on a mobile device, the swap was processed, ultimately returning only 324 AAVE tokens to the trader.
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DeFi Routing Triggers Massive Price Impact
The order was handled through CoW Protocol, which routes transactions across multiple decentralised exchanges integrated with the Aave interface. The process first converted interest-bearing aEthUSDT tokens back into USDT through Aave V3 before moving the funds into a Uniswap liquidity pool to acquire wrapped Ether.
From there, the solver routed the Ether into a SushiSwap pool containing only about US$73,000 (AU$102,930) in liquidity for the AAVE pair, producing an extreme price impact. As a result, the massive order yielded only a small number of AAVE tokens, illustrating how insufficient liquidity can severely distort trade outcomes.
Kulechov said Aave plans to return about US$600,000 (AU$846,000) in fees collected from the trade while attempting to reach the user involved.
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