Web3 is Going Just Great

March 17, 2026

Venus Protocol accumulates $2.15 million in bad debt after exploit

The BNB Chain's Venus Protocol lending protocol accumulated $2.15 million in bad debt after an exploiter manipulated the price of the Thena protocol's THE token. THE had very low liquidity, and the exploiter took advantage of it to manipulate the THE price oracle by borrowing against THE, using the borrowed funds to buy more THE, and repeating — causing the price oracle to reflect higher and higher prices. The attacker was able to avoid a supply cap on Venus by "donating" the funds rather than depositing them in the standard way.

While the exploit left the Venus Protocol with over $2 million in bad debt, it's not clear if the attacker even made money from the exploit. The exploiter's position was ultimately liquidated, collapsing the increase in THE price. However, it's possible the exploiter took advantage of the price discrepancy elsewhere to profit.

The Venus Protocol has had a number of issues in the past — notably in June 2023, when the team developing the BNB Chain had to intervene when the a thief borrowed $150 million on Venus against stolen tokens and then faced liquidation.

"Venus Protocol left with roughly $2M in bad debt after exploit manipulates Thena's THE token price", The Block

March 12, 2026

Trader loses almost $50 million in Aave swap gone wrong

(attribution)

A trader using the Aave interface attempted to swap $50 million USDT for AAVE. However, due to the enormous size of the order, the purchase had dramatic impact on the aave price. The Aave interface warned the customer about the price impact, and the trader clicked a checkbox to accept the order terms. Ultimately, they received only 324 AAVE (~$37,600) in return for their $50 million, losing 99.9% of their assets in the process.

The Aave founder offered to refund the user the $600,000 in fees collected from the transaction, and acknowledged "there are additional guardrails the industry can build to better protect users".