An unknown trader withdrew 3 million USDC from OKX, split it across 19 wallets, and opened over $26 million in leveraged longs on the HYPE (POPCAT-denominated) perpetual on Hyperliquid. The attacker posted a roughly $20 million buy wall near $0.21 then cancelled the orders, thinning liquidity and causing cascading liquidations that left Hyperliquid’s HLP vault about $4.9 million short. The attacker’s own $3 million position was fully wiped; Hyperliquid paused withdrawals with an emergency lock for about an hour before resuming and made no official link between the pause and the POPCAT incident.

Concrete on-chain actions: 3M USDC withdrawn and split across 19 wallets; >$26M in leveraged longs opened on HYPE; ~ $20M buy wall placed then cancelled, causing liquidity thinning and cascading liquidations; result was a $4.9M loss to Hyperliquid’s HLP vault and the attacker’s 3M was wiped; Hyperliquid paused withdrawals for ~1 hour. These facts indicate deliberate market-manipulation-like activity with immediate financial loss to the platform.