Aave and CoW Swap publish dueling post-mortems after $50 million DeFi swap disaster

Aave and CoW Swap have published contrasting post-mortems regarding a disastrous $50 million DeFi swap that occurred on March 12th, where a user converted aEthUSDT into aEthAAVE with a massive loss. While both agree on the basic facts, they differ in their interpretation of the event. Aave attributes the loss primarily to an illiquid market and the user accepting a high price impact warning, while CoW Swap details a series of compounding infrastructure failures, including a stale gas ceiling, solver failures, and a potential mempool leak. CoW Swap has since addressed the gas limit issue and is investigating the potential leak. Aave is implementing “Aave Shield” to prevent similar swaps with high price impact. The incident also revisits an ongoing governance dispute regarding swap fees and the relationship between Aave and Aave Labs. Notably, both post-mortems largely omit details regarding the significant MEV (Miner Extractable Value) extraction that occurred during the transaction, despite CoW Swap previously marketing its integration with Aave as MEV-resistant.

(Source：The Block)