An Ethereum-based (ETH) decentralized exchange (DEX) has suffered millions of dollars in losses after an alleged attempt at market manipulation by a rogue user.
In a new thread on social media platform used to fill gaps in the liquidations processed during the recent yearn.finance (YFI) correction, but notes that there will be no impact on customer funds.
“Last night, approximately $9 million from the dYdX v3 insurance fund was used to fill liquidation gaps in the YFI market. The v3 insurance fund remains well funded with $13.5 million remaining. No user funds have been affected and our team is working on an investigation into the event.”
According to dYdX founder Antonio Juliano, the events that led to the $9 million loss were likely staged by a bad actor with deep pockets.
“Basically this was all driven [by] one actor (traceable via fund movements in the chain)…
The actor was able to withdraw a significant amount of USDC from dYdX just before the price crash. The YFI price crash in the spot market appears to be a deliberate attempt by a single actor (not sure if the same or different) to target the large OI (open interest) on dYdX…
This information strongly leads me to believe that this was a deliberate attempt at market manipulation by a well-capitalized actor(s) designed to drain funds from the dYdX insurance pool.”
The DEX protocol says it is now widening its margin requirements for its more illiquid trading pairs.
“As an immediate measure, we have increased initial margin requirements for less liquid markets: EOS, ZRX, AAVE, ALGO, ICP, XMR, XTZ, ZEC, SUSHI, RUNE, SNX, ENJ, 1INCH, CELO, YFI, UMA, SUSHI. We will continue to monitor, but believe this is an important first step.”
dYdX is trading at $3.26 at the time of writing.
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