POPCAT Trader’s $3M Stunt Triggers $5M Hyperliquid Fallout

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POPCAT Trader’s $3 Million Stunt Triggers $5 Million Hyperliquid Fallout

Written by Aaron S.,

Editor-In-Chief

Last Updated: November 13, 2025

Key Takeaways

A trader used $3 million to manipulate the POPCAT market on Hyperliquid, which led to nearly $5 million in vault losses;
The scheme involved fake buy walls and leveraged trades that triggered mass liquidations;
Hyperliquid temporarily paused withdrawals as a safety step before resuming normal operations.

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POPCAT Trader’s $3 Million Stunt Triggers $5 Million Hyperliquid Fallout

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An incident on Hyperliquid $139.93M left its Hyperliquidity Provider (HLP) vault down by nearly $5 million after a trader used $3 million to manipulate the POPCAT-linked market.

Lookonchain reported that the trader began by withdrawing 3 million USDC USDC $0.9994 from the OKX $1.53B exchange.

The funds were divided across 19 new wallets and later sent to Hyperliquid. There, the trader opened over $26 million in leveraged long positions on HYPE, a contract tied to the POPCAT token.

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Later, the trader placed a large $20 million buy wall around the $0.21 price level. This created a false impression of strong buying interest, which drove the market upward.

Once prices rose, the buy orders were canceled, and the support disappeared. As a result, liquidity fell, and many leveraged traders saw their positions liquidated.

These losses were absorbed by Hyperliquid’s vault, which ended up losing about $4.9 million.

However, the attacker also lost all of their $3 million in the process. Some community members suggested that the trader might have hedged those losses elsewhere, but this remains speculation. One user called the event the "costliest research ever".

During the event, Hyperliquid temporarily paused withdrawals through its bridge. Developer updates later confirmed that the contract was locked using the "vote emergency lock" function as a safety measure.

About an hour later, the team resumed normal operations after reviewing the situation.

The team behind the Balancer protocol recently released its first update following a security breach that led to losses of around $116 million. What did it say? Read the full story.