Mystery whale pulls $290 million from DeFi every midnight as Aave borrowing rates triple
Summary
An unidentified wallet cluster has repeatedly withdrawn about $290 million in USDC from Aave and Sky around midnight, returning the funds roughly 30 minutes later. The activity has sharply reduced Aave’s available liquidity: October median USDC utilization rose from 94% to 99.6%, reaching 100% on six nights. In one example, a $134.1 million withdrawal left less than $46 million available to other depositors and pushed median annualized borrowing rates from 4.5% to 13.8% before they fell after repayment. Bitquery traced recurring midnight transfers over hundreds of nights but could not identify the holder or establish a motive. A possible link to stablecoin reward snapshots remains unverified.
