Cardano Holder Loses 87% of $6.9M in Botched USDA Swap

The sleeping whale of Cardano tried to exchange 14.4 million ADA to USDA and came out with only 847k USDA, burning nearly $6.2 million with one click.

A long-dormant Cardano (ADA) whale burned through more than $6 million in a single swap after trying to move 14.4 million ADA, worth about $7 million, into USDA, Cardano’s native stablecoin, in a low-liquidity pool.

This trade left the wallet with just $847,000, an estimated loss of 87%, and reopened difficult questions about Cardano’s readiness for decentralized finance.

The expensive deal

According to the series’ investigator ZachXBT, the whale’s wallet had been dormant for about five years prior to this to implement swap, temporarily pushing the USDA rate well above its peg due to poor liquidity.

Loconchine I mentioned The deal was valued at 14.45 million ADA, with a valuation north of $7 million, resulting in the user receiving $847,694 and making a loss of about $6.2 million.

Screenshots shared by community member $DeFiPunk show the DEX interface Flashing Warning of “high price impact” and estimated slippage of more than 87%, with the user manually checking the “I understand this warning” checkbox before confirming the transaction.

This has sparked debate over whether this was a reckless move, an honest mistake by an “inexperienced coupon holder,” as Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson suggested, or even a deliberate attention game to highlight liquidity issues.

Feedback from the Cardano community has been mixed. Some, like Cardano YOD₳, Argue that “one bad swap can have negative reputational consequences” and questioned whether the ecosystem had its priorities right, pointing to marketing and governance discussions rather than underlying liquidity.

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Others responded that the issue was primarily a “liquidity issue first, a DEX issue second,” criticizing the slow delivery of UX upgrades and the need for better aggregation solutions.

Hoskinson, in reply to X, Shoot it ‘Teachable moment’ for Cardano’s DeFi scaling in 2026, with calls for whale compensation sternly rejected.

Market pressure and ecosystem requirements

The multi-million dollar blunder marks a continuation of a period of pressure on Cardano, as on-chain data from earlier in the month shows whales unloading 4 million ADA in a week as prices fell from over $0.60 to almost $0.53, further deepening bearish sentiment.

Just days later, on November 11, the pileup was renewed with other large shareholders scoop Nearly 1% of supply rose during the decline below $0.50, leading analysts to forecast a potential rebound if ADA manages to reclaim the $0.70 area. That hasn’t happened yet, as the asset, which ranks 11th by market cap, is trading at around $0.50, down about 17% in the past week and 22% over the past 30 days, according to CoinGecko data.

At the same time, this incident intensified calls for increased stablecoin liquidity on Cardano. “We need to double down on liquidity withdrawals from stablecoins right now,” commentator Lorenzo clearly argued. This sentiment has been echoed by others who believe the incident proves that there is significant demand for moving capital on the network, but a lack of infrastructure to support it. However, Hoskinson repeatedly He confirmed“It is not my job to bring a stablecoin to Cardano,” which puts the onus on the broader ecosystem.