What happens when $2 million of selling meets a market that trades about $37,000 a day on Binance? Ask $KAVA
Kava said the damage was limited to Kava Lend. On Binance, KAVA/USDT still fell 59% in one day, from $0.0678 to $0.0279 on Nov 14 (UTC), after 44 quiet days. The trigger was suddenly sellable supply, not chain news.
What happened?
Oct 1 to Nov 13: KAVA drifted between $0.065 and $0.072 on about 530K KAVA a day.
> Nov 8: an attacker began testing a corner of Kava Lend few used, the BUSD market (BUSD: a Binance-branded stablecoin, no longer minted).
> Nov 13-14: the attacker pushed that market's supply to almost zero, so the app counted every BUSD deposit as roughly 243,000 times more valuable. With that fake collateral it borrowed about 55.2M KAVA in 127 loans. About 49.2M KAVA went to BNB Chain and sold for roughly $2.1M, around 90 times a normal Binance day of KAVA.
> Nov 14: at 10:00 UTC the hourly candle fell 33% ($0.0681 to $0.0459) on 4.9M KAVA, about 190 times an average hour. At 10:35 and 10:40 UTC Bithumb and Coinone paused KAVA deposits and withdrawals, and Upbit followed. At 14:05 UTC Kava paused its Axelar bridge and said it was no infinite mint and was contained in Kava Lend.
Later, Bitquery found the pool owed lenders 55.2M KAVA but held 0.19.
Everyone in this story wanted something different:
- The attacker wanted an exit: millions of tokens into a thin market.
- Kava wanted the word "contained" to land before the sell orders did.
- Korean exchanges wanted customers protected, so they froze transfers.
- Lenders wanted deposits back from an empty pool.
Three things this candle showed:
- Contained in the app is not contained in the price. The stolen coin was the same coin everyone held.
- A quiet chart can hide thin liquidity. About $2M of selling needed no news to move it.
- Exchange pauses often reach traders before the full story does.
Do you have any insight to share about KAVA?
Experience, not financial advice.
#kavasaysabnormalactivitylimitedtokavalend
Kava said the damage was limited to Kava Lend. On Binance, KAVA/USDT still fell 59% in one day, from $0.0678 to $0.0279 on Nov 14 (UTC), after 44 quiet days. The trigger was suddenly sellable supply, not chain news.
What happened?
Oct 1 to Nov 13: KAVA drifted between $0.065 and $0.072 on about 530K KAVA a day.
> Nov 8: an attacker began testing a corner of Kava Lend few used, the BUSD market (BUSD: a Binance-branded stablecoin, no longer minted).
> Nov 13-14: the attacker pushed that market's supply to almost zero, so the app counted every BUSD deposit as roughly 243,000 times more valuable. With that fake collateral it borrowed about 55.2M KAVA in 127 loans. About 49.2M KAVA went to BNB Chain and sold for roughly $2.1M, around 90 times a normal Binance day of KAVA.
> Nov 14: at 10:00 UTC the hourly candle fell 33% ($0.0681 to $0.0459) on 4.9M KAVA, about 190 times an average hour. At 10:35 and 10:40 UTC Bithumb and Coinone paused KAVA deposits and withdrawals, and Upbit followed. At 14:05 UTC Kava paused its Axelar bridge and said it was no infinite mint and was contained in Kava Lend.
Later, Bitquery found the pool owed lenders 55.2M KAVA but held 0.19.
Everyone in this story wanted something different:
- The attacker wanted an exit: millions of tokens into a thin market.
- Kava wanted the word "contained" to land before the sell orders did.
- Korean exchanges wanted customers protected, so they froze transfers.
- Lenders wanted deposits back from an empty pool.
Three things this candle showed:
- Contained in the app is not contained in the price. The stolen coin was the same coin everyone held.
- A quiet chart can hide thin liquidity. About $2M of selling needed no news to move it.
- Exchange pauses often reach traders before the full story does.
Do you have any insight to share about KAVA?
Experience, not financial advice.
#kavasaysabnormalactivitylimitedtokavalend
