Bought 74 billion won worth but only 324 tokens?…Large-scale slippage hits Aave

On decentralized finance (DeFi) platform Aave (AAVE), an investor attempted to buy tokens worth $50 million (about 74 billion won) but suffered massive “slippage” (the gap between the order price and the actual execution price), wiping out most of the investment.

On the 12th (local time), Aave CEO Stani Kulechov said on X, “A user tried to buy AAVE with 50 million Tether (USDT) through the Aave interface, experienced extreme slippage, and ultimately received only 324 AAVE.” The result came as a huge $50 million single order hit the market at once, driving the execution price to astronomical levels due to a lack of liquidity.

According to Kulechov, the incident stemmed from user error rather than a system malfunction. The Aave interface detected the unusually large order size and, like typical exchanges, warned the user of the possibility of extreme slippage and required final confirmation via a checkbox.

However, the user is believed to have acknowledged the warning on a mobile device, agreed by ticking the checkbox, and then pushed ahead with the swap (exchange). “If the user had not explicitly accepted the risk, the trade could not have proceeded,” Kulechov said, adding that “the connected CoW Swap router functioned perfectly normally as intended, in line with industry standards.”

Aave said it would refund part of the funds on moral grounds. Kulechov promised, “We deeply regret what happened to the user, and we will get in touch to return the $600,000 in fees (about 800 million won) collected by the platform from this transaction.”

He also pointed to the need for structural improvements in the DeFi ecosystem. “DeFi must preserve permissionlessness and openness so anyone can trade freely, but the industry needs to build additional safety mechanisms to protect users,” he said. “Our team will conduct an in-depth review of ways to improve such safeguards going forward.”