A dormant Cardano address has become the source of one of the network’s most expensive slip-ups of 2025 after incinerating more than $6 million in a single, poorly routed swap involving an obscure stablecoin.
The wallet, untouched since September 2020, suddenly became active on Sunday and executed a massive trade: 14.4 million ADA — worth about $6.9 million — was exchanged for just 847,695 USDA, a low-liquidity Cardano-native dollar stablecoin. The move, flagged by on-chain analyst ZachXBT, resulted in one of the year’s most extreme slippage events.
The trader ended up paying more than $8 per USDA, a staggering overpayment for a token designed to hover near $1 and supported by only $10.6 million in market cap. In seconds, roughly $6.05 million evaporated from the wallet’s value.
Because USDA pools hold very limited liquidity, the oversized order violently distorted pricing across Cardano’s DEX ecosystem. USDA temporarily spiked to nearly $1.26 before sliding back toward $1.04 once the pool rebalanced following the trade.
The address had no previous interaction with USDA, adding to speculation about whether the user clicked the wrong ticker, misunderstood the token, or assumed sufficient depth existed for a near-market-order swap. Cardano’s roster of similarly named USD-linked assets makes the ticker-mixup theory plausible.
The mishap illustrates a fundamental rule of on-chain trading: deep pockets and automated market makers rarely mix without slippage protection. Even a few million dollars of ADA can crush a shallow pool and force a catastrophic price impact when liquidity is thin.
Such errors are not unprecedented — past cycles have seen traders lose seven figures due to mistyped tickers, zero-liquidity pools, or aggressive aggregator routing — but this incident stands out due to the wallet’s five-year dormancy before making such a costly mistake.
For many in the Cardano community, the episode is a stark reminder that decentralized markets remain unforgiving. Without careful routing and liquidity checks, even long-silent wallets can reawaken straight into a liquidity trap.
