A previously inactive Cardano wallet just erased over $6 million in a single swap, marking one of the most significant slippage incidents the network has seen this year.
The wallet holder, who hadn’t engaged in any transactions since September 2020, surfaced on-chain Sunday and exchanged 14.4 million ADA (approximately $6.9 million) for just 847,695 USDA, an obscure dollar-pegged stablecoin on Cardano.
The transaction was initially reported by on-chain analyst ZachXBT in their Telegram channel.
The user effectively paid over $8 per USDA during the swap—an extreme misstep, as USDA is meant to be valued close to $1 and has a market cap of about $10.6 million. The transaction promptly erased around $6.05 million in value.
With limited on-chain liquidity, the order caused the stablecoin’s price to spike to nearly $1.26 on Cardano DEXs, according to CoinGecko. USDA briefly exceeded its peg before settling back to approximately $1.04, as liquidity returned to normal after the large order was completed.
The wallet had no prior transactions with USDA, leaving it uncertain if the user mistakenly clicked, mixed up the stablecoin ticker, or assumed liquidity would suffice for a market-order swap. A mistaken ticker choice is likely since USDA is not frequently traded, and the Cardano ecosystem has various USD-denominated assets with similar tickers.
This situation serves as a classic example of why large traders steer clear of illiquid pools and never execute sizable orders through automated market makers without slippage considerations. Even several million dollars in ADA can overwhelm decentralized liquidity if the opposing side of the pool is underfunded.
In previous market cycles, traders have lost seven figures due to incorrect ticker choices, entirely illiquid pools, or overly aggressive market orders made through aggregators.
On Cardano, the incident reverberates through trading circles not because of the stablecoin itself, but due to the fact that the wallet had been inactive for five years—only to suddenly reactivate and lose millions through a single bad swap.
This serves as a stark reminder that dormant capital can still fall victim to modern liquidity pitfalls, and on-chain execution remains unforgiving regarding size, speed, and slippage.
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