GeckoPulse: Hyperliquid's HLP Suffered $5M Loss from POPCAT

The Popcat Problem

The Hyperliquid DEX had paused deposits and withdrawals on its platform after a trader attempted to manipulate its POPCAT markets, forcing the Hyperliquid’s HLP vault to take on losses.

According to the pseudonymous on-chain analyst known as ‘MLM’, the trader withdrew $3M worth of USDC from the OKX exchange into 19 different wallets.

Using these distinct addresses, the trader began to open up to $30M worth of leveraged positions on the POPCAT memecoin, pushing the price to over $0.21.

Interestingly, the trader opted to remove his own buy orders, causing the price to tank and liquidate his position, forcing HLP to take over.

As the price of POPCAT continued to nosedive back down to $0.13, Hyperliquid realized a $4.9M loss after manually closing out the position.

Since the attack, the price of Hyperliquid’s HYPE token has remained largely unaffected and has actually risen by 4.3% from $37.77 to $39.39.
 

The Hyperliquid team has also reopened deposits and withdrawals.

The OKX App Goes On-chain

Crypto exchange OKX has launched DEX trading on its OKX wallet app, allowing users to access on-chain markets across Base, Solana and its own Layer-2, X Layer.

According to the OKX team, the idea is to provide uninterrupted access to tokens across different markets, allowing users to manage their CEX and DEX portfolios on a single platform.

Using a one-time passkey setup, users will be able to freely switch and view live price data between CEX and DEX markets.

Traders can then execute gas-free trades using their OKX self-custodial wallet, taking advantage of liquidity sourced from over 100 different pools.

Notably, this feature will be available globally, including the United States.

Since the announcement, the price of OKX’s native utility token, OKB, has fallen by 7.1% from $123.17 to $114.47.

Snipers Beware 

The popular Uniswap DEX has introduced a new mechanism for conducting new token launches, known as Continuous Clearing Auctions (CCA).

The new protocol is a permissionless and customizable system that conducts auctions on a block-by-block basis, after which a liquidity pool will be automatically seeded using the last clearing price.

Using CCA, buyers can place bids at a specific price, and receive tokens only when the final clearing price falls below their maximum bid.

Projects can choose the initial parameters for the auction, including the starting token price, and duration - with the option of tranche-based emissions and KYC verification for added security.

Upon each auction’s conclusion, a Uniswap v4 liquidity pool will be automatically deployed at the final sale price.

The CCA protocol is now live on Ethereum and the Unichain network.

Aero Takes Off

Dromos Labs, the parent company behind both the Base DEX Aerodrome and Optimism DEX Velodrome, will unify the two platforms under a new trading hub, “Aero.”

The new Aero platform will also be deployed on the Ethereum mainnet, as well as Circle's stablecoin-focused Arc blockchain.

Additionally, the native VELO and AERO tokens will be combined into a single token.

5.5% of the new token supply will go to existing VELO holders, while AERO holders will receive the rest.

Besides that, Dromos has also introduced a new DEX operating system known as MetaDEX 03, which aims to improve the platform's cross-chain functionality and rewards for liquidity providers.

Since the announcement, the price of  AERO has decreased by 16.2% from $1.17 to $0.98 as of today.

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