Hyperliquid Vault Loses $1.5M After Coordinated FARTCOIN Pump Attack

Coordinated Long Positions Drain Hyperliquid's Vault

On the night of April 9, an unknown actor used four wallets to orchestrate a manipulation attack against Hyperliquid's liquidity provider vault (HLP) through massive long positions on the FARTCOIN token. The vault suffered approximately $1.5 million in losses.

Blockchain security firm PeckShield shared a breakdown of the attack:

"#PeckShieldAlert #HLP is down ~$1.5M in the last 24h. Attacker accumulated a $15M $Fartcoin long (145.24M tokens) across 4 wallets. In a low-liquidity environment, the attacker triggered a 'suicide' liquidation, forcing the ADL mechanism to kick in. HLP was forced to absorb the…" — PeckShieldAlert (@PeckShieldAlert), original post

According to PeckShield's analysis, the attacker spread $15 million worth of long positions (145.24 million FARTCOIN) across four addresses. This briefly pushed the token's price up by 25% — from $0.20 to $0.25 — before order manipulation began in a thin-liquidity environment.

The attacker deliberately drove their positions into a "suicide" liquidation. As the longs were closed, the automatic deleveraging (ADL) mechanism kicked in, forcing the HLP system to absorb the losing positions.

Why This Matters

Repeated attacks on HLP expose a structural vulnerability in Hyperliquid's design: low liquidity in certain token pairs allows bad actors to systematically offload losses onto the platform's vault. Each incident erodes user trust in the liquidation mechanism and raises questions about whether stricter position limits are needed.

The Attacker's Loss Is Likely Illusory

Researchers estimated the attacker's on-paper loss from the liquidated positions at roughly $3 million. However, the real profit was likely substantial thanks to hedged positions on other platforms.

Following the attack, FARTCOIN's price dropped sharply. At the time of reporting, the token had fallen to $0.19, down about 7% over 24 hours.

A Pattern of Vault Exploits on Hyperliquid

This is far from the first time Hyperliquid's vault has been targeted. In March 2025, HLP lost roughly $4 million after a single large trader opened a highly leveraged long position on 175,000 ETH, setting off cascading liquidations.

That same month, a similar incident involved the JELLYJELLY token. A trader opened two longs worth $2.15 million and $1.9 million while hedging with a $4.1 million short position. A pump of approximately 400% in the token's price liquidated the short, transferring its assets to HLP. The exchange halted trading on the contract, but the user managed to withdraw around $6.2 million.

Analysts at 10x Research previously noted that Hyperliquid's transparent architecture enables what amounts to a "crowd hunt" against large leveraged traders, where other participants deliberately push positions toward liquidation thresholds.