- A crypto trader executing a $50 million swap for AAVE tokens on Cow Swap received only about 324 tokens due to extreme 99% price impact, effectively turning the stake into roughly $36,000.
- Aave founder Stani Kulechov has offered a $600,000 refund for the fees, while approximately $34 million in Ethereum was extracted from the transaction by MEV bots like Titan Builder.
- The event has sparked intense community debate over the trader’s actions, with some questioning if the trade was an error or potentially a cover for illicit activity like money laundering.
- Despite the incident, AAVE’s price rose over 6% in 24 hours, with retail sentiment remaining ‘bullish’ on platforms like Stocktwits.
A crypto trader attempting to swap $50 million of USDT for AAVE tokens on Cow Swap saw the transaction ravaged by slippage, receiving only about 324 tokens. Aave founder Stani Kulechov subsequently offered to refund approximately $600,000 in fees tied to the disastrous trade. However, the interface had clearly warned the user of a 99% price impact before confirmation, as noted by Aave engineer Martin Grabina in a post on X.
Consequently, the remaining capital flooded into the SushiSwap liquidity pool, buying every cheap token available. Meanwhile, maximum extractable value (MEV) bots captured millions in arbitrage from the event. On-chain data from Arkham Intelligence, flagged by analyst Emmett Gallic, showed Titan Builder extracted $34 million in Ethereum.
Another bot extracted nearly $10 million more using a “sandwich trade” strategy. This incident has ignited fierce debate across the crypto community about the trader’s rationale. Some users speculated the transaction could be “a way to cover up money laundering,” as one Twitter post claimed.
Meanwhile, others questioned why anyone would attempt to buy 3% of AAVE’s circulating supply in one move. Despite the controversy, AAVE’s price increased more than 6% to over $114 in the last day. Retail sentiment around the token trended ‘bullish’ on Stocktwits, with chatter remaining at high levels.
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