A whale attempting a $50 million swap on Aave ended up with just $36,000 in tokens after ignoring extreme slippage warnings, highlighting the risks of large trades in DeFi liquidity pools.
Posted March 13, 2026 at 7:18 am EST.
A crypto whale appears to have lost nearly $50 million in a single trade after attempting to swap $50 million worth of USDT for AAVE through the Aave interface.
According to Aave founder Stani Kulechov, the unusually large order triggered warnings before the transaction went through. “The interface warned the user about extraordinary slippage and required confirmation via a checkbox,” Kulechov wrote on X. The trader proceeded anyway and the swap executed, ultimately returning just 324 AAVE, worth roughly $36,000.
The issue was not a hack or protocol exploit. Kulechov later clarified that the user accepted a quote with extremely high price impact, meaning the size of the trade pushed the price dramatically higher as it executed.
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CoW Swap, whose routing infrastructure processed the transaction, said the trade “executed according to the parameters of the signed order” and that clear price impact warnings were shown.
Kulechov said the Aave team sympathizes with the trader and is attempting to contact them to return about $600,000 in fees collected during the transaction.
if AAVE goes to $154,320 he breaks even on his trade
— Thor (@0xThoor) March 12, 2026
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