Trader torches $3M to punch a $5M hole in Hyperliquid’s vault
A community member called the $3 million wipeout “performance art,” saying that only in crypto do villains torch millions purely for the sake of the plot.
A coordinated attack on Hyperliquid wiped out nearly $5 million from the protocol’s Hyperliquidity Provider (HLP) vault, when an unknown trader burned through $3 million in capital to manipulate the POPCAT market and trigger cascading liquidations.
Blockchain analytics company Lookonchain shared on Thursday that it all started when the attacker withdrew 3 million USDC (USDC) from the OKX crypto exchange and split the funds into 19 fresh wallets. The trader then funneled the assets into Hyperliquid to open over $26 million in leveraged longs tied to HYPE, the platform’s POPCAT-denominated perpetual contract.
After this, the trader built a $20 million buy wall near the $0.21 price point. This became an artificially created signal of strength that pushed the market upward before the orders were cancelled. When the wall collapsed, liquidity thinned as price support vanished.
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