A crypto trader lost nearly $50 million after executing a massive swap for AAVE tokens. The user swapped $50 million worth of USDT through the Aave interface, receiving only 324 AAVE tokens valued at roughly $36,100. The system issued an “extraordinary slippage” warning, which the trader confirmed on a mobile device. Aave founder Stani Kulechov stated the protocol will attempt to return about $600,000 in fees from the trade.
A crypto trader lost almost the entire value of a $50 million transaction after executing a large swap for Aave‘s governance token through the protocol’s trading interface. The user attempted to buy AAVE with $50 million worth of USDT, according to a statement posted by founder Stani Kulechov.
Because the order was unusually large, the interface issued a warning flagging “extraordinary slippage” and required manual confirmation. The trader then proceeded with the swap on a mobile device after checking a confirmation box.
The transaction ultimately returned just 324 AAVE tokens, worth roughly $36,100 at a current market price of $111.52. Aave engineer Martin Grabina said the core issue was the price impact, noting the trade quote already implied $50 million would return fewer than 140 AAVE tokens before fees.
Kulechov said the trade was routed through CoW Swap and the infrastructure functioned as designed. “The transaction could not be moved forward without the user explicitly accepting the risk,” Kulechov wrote.
Large trades on decentralized exchanges can cause severe price impact when liquidity is insufficient. Professional traders typically split large orders across multiple transactions to minimize this effect.
Kulechov said the incident shows how decentralized finance platforms may need stronger guardrails. “Our team will be investigating ways to improve these safeguards going forward,” Kulechov stated.
