One of the year’s most costly on-chain mistakes unfolded on Cardano this week after a long-dormant wallet blew through more than $6 million by routing a massive swap through an illiquid micro-cap stablecoin pool.
The address — inactive since September 2020 — unexpectedly resurfaced Sunday and exchanged 14.4 million ADA (roughly $6.9 million) for only 847,695 USDA, a little-known Cardano-native stablecoin. On-chain investigator ZachXBT was the first to flag the unusual trade in their Telegram feed.
The execution price was catastrophic. The trader effectively paid over $8 per USDA, far above the stablecoin’s intended $1 peg and its modest $10.6 million market capitalization. Nearly $6.05 million in value evaporated the moment the swap completed.
Because USDA’s liquidity is extremely thin, the oversized order violently distorted pricing across Cardano DEXs. USDA briefly spiked to almost $1.26 before easing back toward $1.04 as liquidity settled once the trade finished clearing.
The wallet had no recorded interaction with USDA, leaving observers unsure whether this was a misclick, a mistaken ticker selection, or an assumption that the pool could handle a market-order style swap. Cardano hosts several USD-themed assets with similar symbols, raising the likelihood of a ticker confusion error.
The incident is a stark illustration of how fragile decentralized liquidity can be. Large traders generally avoid thin pools and never route size without firm slippage limits — especially when dealing with automated market makers that adjust prices purely based on pool depth.
On-chain history is littered with examples of seven-figure losses caused by misrouted trades, nonexistent liquidity, or unchecked market orders. But this one stands out: a wallet untouched for five years returned only to vaporize millions in seconds.
For Cardano users, it’s a harsh reminder that old capital is not immune to new liquidity risks — and that decentralized markets remain unforgiving when a large order meets a shallow pool.
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