Bitcoin, Ether, XRP Slide After Yearn Exploit Rocks DeFi Market
Major cryptocurrencies fell in early Asian trading on Monday following an “incident” in Yearn Finance’s yETH liquidity pool, continuing a rough end to November.
Bitcoin (BTC) dropped more than 3% to around $87,000, while Ethereum (ETH) fell 5%. Solana (SOL), Dogecoin (DOGE), and XRP all slid over 4%, according to CoinDesk data.
Yearn’s X alert flagged an issue in its yETH pool but confirmed that its V2 and V3 Vaults remained unaffected. Reports suggest an attacker exploited a vulnerability to mint a large amount of yETH in a single transaction, draining approximately 1,000 ETH ($3 million), which was routed through mixers.
YETH is a user-governed liquidity pool token made up of Ethereum Liquid Staking Derivatives (LSTs). Blockchain security firm PeckShield said the protocol lost $9 million in the exploit, with 1,000 ETH sent to Tornado Cash and the attacker retaining roughly $6 million in tokens.
The incident comes shortly after Korean exchange Upbit suffered a multi-million-dollar hack, highlighting ongoing security risks in the crypto market despite growing institutional inflows.
The early Asian session sell-off triggered more than $400 million in liquidations of leveraged crypto futures, mainly long positions, according to Coinglass, catching many traders off guard.
November was already a tough month: Bitcoin fell 17.5%, its largest monthly drop since March, even after a late rebound from nearly $80,000 to over $90,000. Ethereum declined 22%, its worst monthly performance since February.
Institutional demand also weakened. U.S.-listed spot BTC ETFs recorded $3.48 billion in net outflows in November, the second-largest on record, while Ether ETFs saw a record $1.42 billion in outflows, according to SoSoValue.
The Yearn exploit underscores persistent vulnerabilities in DeFi and the broader crypto ecosystem, showing that institutional inflows alone cannot fully safeguard the market.
