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Dormant Cardano Wallet Loses $6 Million on Illiquid USDA Stablecoin Swap

A whale-sized order into a thin stablecoin pool sent USDA off its $1 peg, crystallizing extreme slippage.

Overview

  • The address swapped 14.4 million ADA (about $6.9 million) for 847,695 USDA, realizing roughly $6.05 million in losses at execution.
  • On-chain records show the wallet had been inactive since September 2020 and sent a 4,437 ADA test transaction 33 seconds before the large swap.
  • USDA briefly spiked to around $1.26 before easing toward $1.04, according to CoinGecko, as the trade overwhelmed shallow Cardano DEX liquidity.
  • The stablecoin’s market cap sits near $10–10.6 million with liquidity concentrated in small pools, amplifying price impact for large orders.
  • Investigator ZachXBT flagged the sequence, and reporting notes no evidence of an exploit and no confirmed intent, highlighting execution risk in Cardano’s low-liquidity DeFi.