Kava Lend Pool Left With Just 0.19 KAVA After $3.76 Million Hack

• The attacker borrowed tokens worth $3.76 million before the price fell.
• The lending pool held just 0.19 KAVA after the attack.
• Three South Korean exchanges paused transfers, but Bithumb kept trading open.

An attacker borrowed about 55.2 million KAVA from Kava Lend late on November 13, nearly emptying the protocol’s lending pool. The tokens were worth roughly $3.76 million before the attack. By 6:25 p.m. UTC on November 14, KAVA traded at $0.0375, down 44.8% over 24 hours. The price decline compounded a separate problem for lenders: the pool no longer held enough tokens to cover their deposits. 

Kava Lend had just 0.19 KAVA left to cover deposits

According to The Block’s review of blockchain records, Kava Lend assigned an inflated value to collateral in a little-used BUSD stablecoin market. That accounting error let the attacker borrow existing KAVA that other users had deposited. 

The account holding those pooled deposits started with 55.33 million KAVA. A little over 90 minutes later, it held just 0.19 KAVA. Bitquery estimated that the pool still owed lenders about 55.2 million tokens. 

In a November 14 statement, Kava said the incident was confined to Kava Lend and ruled out the creation of new tokens. At the time of that statement, the team had not issued its own loss estimate. 

Exchanges halt KAVA transfers as Bithumb keeps trading open

About 49.2 million KAVA crossed to BNB Chain through LayerZero. The attacker sold most of those tokens for BNB and USDT worth roughly $2.09 million combined. That figure measures the sale proceeds; the larger $3.76 million estimate values all the borrowed tokens before the sell-off. 

Kava later paused withdrawals through Axelar as a precaution. Axelar was a separate bridge from LayerZero, the route the attacker used to move the tokens. 

Upbit, Bithumb and Coinone suspended KAVA deposits and withdrawals on November 14. In its customer notice, Bithumb said customers could still trade KAVA on the exchange during the transfer freeze.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. CoinCryptoNewz is not responsible for any losses incurred. Readers should do their own research before making financial decisions.