Hyperliquid’s HyperVault Project Rugged for $3.6M, Devs Disappear
HyperVault builders have executed a rug pull on their Hyperliquid-based DeFi platform, draining roughly $3.6 million in person funds earlier than disappearing and deleting all social media accounts.
PeckShieldAlert first detected irregular withdrawals from the yield protocol, with funds being bridged from Hyperliquid to Ethereum and transformed to ETH.
The stolen funds adopted a well-recognized sample, with 752 ETH deposited into Tornado Cash to obscure transaction trails.
HyperVault’s official Twitter account now shows “this account doesn’t exist,” whereas their Discord server has additionally vanished.
Unfortunately, early alerts had been raised on September 4 when neighborhood member HypingBull shared on X considerations in regards to the challenge’s claimed safety audits, however had been ignored.
When HyperVault builders acknowledged that audits had been “pending by way of Spearbit, Pashov, and Code4rena,” an investigation revealed that none of those companies had been concerned within the challenge.
The rip-off provides stress to Hyperliquid’s ecosystem as HYPE token faces intense competition from ASTER DEX, which just lately processed over $13 billion in day by day perpetual futures quantity.
Arthur Hayes beforehand exited his total HYPE place for $823,000 revenue, citing upcoming token unlocks price $11.9 billion beginning November 29. He is now contemplating getting again in.
Red Flags Ignored Despite Community Warnings
HypingBull’s September 4 alert warned customers about HyperVault’s suspicious audit claims, urging speedy withdrawals of funds from the protocol, which had a complete worth of $700,000 locked on the time.
The investigator contacted Pashov straight by way of Telegram, receiving affirmation that that they had “by no means heard of the challenge with this identify.”
MAX REPOST
: HYPERVAULT PROJECT IS DOING SHADY STUFF
Friends, withdraw your funds from the protocol ASAP till additional updates! When I requested Hypervault builders about audits, they answered that: “Audits are pending by way of Spearbit, Pashov, and Code4rena; anticipated turnaround for… https://t.co/SMKLP9S1tR pic.twitter.com/NBwrsbwRT6
— HypingBull (@hypingbull) September 4, 2025
Code4rena’s web site additionally confirmed no pending audits for HyperVault, contradicting the builders’ public statements about complete safety critiques.
Despite these revelations, many customers continued to deposit funds, attracted by the platform’s marketed 90% APR yields on HYPE tokens.
HYPE Maxis, similar to HYPEconomist, actively promoted the protocol till the ultimate days, posting “cooking! use the cash and put it right into a hypervault” on September 23.
The endorsement got here simply three days earlier than the rug pull execution.
Now that they’ve efficiently executed the rip-off, the forensic aftermath has found early warning indicators, together with the challenge’s lack of transparency about crew identities and the suspicious absence of any reliable audit documentation.
The high-yield guarantees ought to have additionally raised extra considerations given the DeFi market requirements.
HyperVault’s disappearance follows a sample of DeFi initiatives utilizing enticing returns to lure victims earlier than executing exit scams.
Just final month, CrediX Finance also executed a $4.5 million exit scam on August 8 after promising to get better stolen funds inside two days.
The protocol’s crew vanished after attackers, suspected to be them, gained administrative management of their multisig pockets, with all official accounts deleted and the web site remaining offline because the exploit occurred.
Ecosystem Faces Growing Security and Competition Challenges
The HyperVault rug pull compounds present stress on Hyperliquid as ASTER DEX gained vital floor in perpetual buying and selling quantity.
ASTER’s Trust Wallet integration gives 100 million customers with direct entry to perpetual contracts, difficult Hyperliquid’s market dominance.
Previous exploits have examined Hyperliquid’s infrastructure, together with the March JELLY token manipulation that value the platform’s vault $13.5 million.
A dealer used leveraged positions and synthetic value pumping to use the automated market maker system.
Similar incidents concerned merchants incomes earnings whereas inflicting vault losses, together with “ETH 50x Big Guy,” who netted $1.8 million revenue whereas the vault misplaced $4 million.
These exploits led to diminished most leverage limits from 40x to 25x for main cryptocurrencies.
Technical points have additionally plagued the platform, together with a 37-minute trading outage in July as a consequence of an API server overload attributable to a surge in visitors.
The downtime brought on value divergences as merchants had been unable to shut positions in the course of the halt.
For now, it’s unsure how HYPE’s price will react to this; nevertheless, with Arthur Hayes now polling followers about re-entering HYPE after the token dropped 23% weekly to $35.50.
He has restored optimism after being one of many components that contributed to its downtrend when he bought all his place, citing large upcoming token unlocks that would create $500 million month-to-month promote stress.
The publish Hyperliquid’s HyperVault Project Rugged for $3.6M, Devs Disappear appeared first on Cryptonews.
