The attack on Hyperliquid failed: the CZ-linked exchange Aster lost four times as much.
Competition between the two largest decentralized derivatives exchanges has escalated into open conflict, and the results of the first round have proven highly instructive. A trading address, which according to my data was funded through the Aster platform, attempted to artificially crash the liquidity of its direct competitor — Hyperliquid. However, the scheme ended in complete fiasco: the attacker lost four times more than the victim itself.
Chronicle of a Failed Manipulation
The incident was recorded by analysts on June 16. Blockchain analysis shows that the address belonged to a group of wallets that had withdrawn $2.3 million from the Aster platform a week earlier. Approximately 20 hours before the attack, this wallet transferred $635,000 to Hyperliquid. Immediately after, the trader began aggressively building a long position in the Fartcoin token, bringing it to $7.1 million — about 20% of the open interest.
The standard attack scheme involved five steps: accumulating a position in a low-liquidity asset, artificially inflating the price through spot purchases, triggering protective liquidations of large positions, and transferring them to the HLP liquidity pool. However, this time the strategy failed from the very start. After four hours of continuous buying, the attacker's wallet was fully liquidated, incurring a loss of $540,000. Meanwhile, the HLP pool lost only about $130,000, successfully absorbing and closing the position.
Context of the Confrontation
Aster is a multi-chain DEX without mandatory verification, created through the merger of the Astherus and APX Finance platforms with support from YZi Labs. The exchange offers clients leverage of up to 1000x. Changpeng Zhao (CZ) openly calls this project the main competitor to Hyperliquid, and the businessmen have been repeatedly accused of launching attacks on the platform via Aster.
My expert opinion: This episode clearly demonstrates that even with strong financial backing and aggressive rhetoric, Hyperliquid's technical architecture proved more resilient than the attackers anticipated. The failure of the attack not only damaged Aster's reputation but also showed that the derivatives market is becoming less vulnerable to classic manipulations. In the long term, such incidents only strengthen trust in platforms with robust liquidity mechanisms.