TL;DR
- Suspicious withdrawals: PeckShield identified $3.6 million in abnormal outflows from Hypervault, bridged to Ethereum, converted into ETH, and then funneled into Tornado Cash, a pattern strongly associated with rug pulls.
- Vanishing act: Hypervault’s X account, website, and Discord server all disappeared within hours of the flagged transactions, leaving users without communication channels and fueling widespread speculation of a deliberate exit scam.
- Ecosystem fallout: The collapse has shaken confidence in Hyperliquid’s ecosystem, highlighting the risks of unaudited third-party protocols and leaving community members urging wallet revocations to limit further exposure.
The DeFi sector is facing renewed scrutiny after Hypervault, a project built on the Hyperliquid blockchain, abruptly vanished following suspicious outflows totaling about $3.6 million. Blockchain security firm PeckShield flagged the abnormal transactions, which were quickly linked to a potential rug pull. The incident has rattled confidence in Hyperliquid’s ecosystem, even though the core blockchain itself remains unaffected.
#PeckShieldAlert #Rugpull? We have detected an abnormal withdrawal of ~$3.6M worth of cryptos from @hypervaultfi.
The funds were bridged from #Hyperliquid to #Ethereum, swapped into $ETH, and then 752 $ETH was deposited into #TornadoCash. pic.twitter.com/mHQLPYXvzS
— PeckShieldAlert (@PeckShieldAlert) September 26, 2025
PeckShield Flags Suspicious Outflows
PeckShield reported that Hypervault experienced abnormal withdrawals amounting to $3.6 million. The funds were bridged from Hyperliquid to Ethereum, swapped into ETH, and then funneled into Tornado Cash. Approximately 752 ETH, worth nearly $3 million, was deposited into the mixer, a move often associated with exit scams. The sudden disappearance of funds raised immediate concerns among users and industry observers.
Social Media and Website Vanish
The controversy deepened when Hypervault’s official X account was deleted and its website became inaccessible. The project’s Discord server also went offline, cutting off communication channels for affected users. These actions fueled speculation that the operators had orchestrated a deliberate rug pull. Community members noted that warnings had surfaced weeks earlier about irregularities in Hypervault’s audit claims, with at least two firms denying involvement despite the project’s assertions.
Hypervault’s Promises and Collapse
Before its disappearance, Hypervault promoted itself as a multichain yield optimization hub and digital vault for businesses. It advertised unmanaged auto-compounding vaults, keeper-bot harvests, and modular strategies designed to maximize returns across lending and liquidity venues on HyperEVM. At its peak, the platform reported roughly $5.8 million in total value locked. However, critics now suggest that these figures may have been inflated to attract deposits. The collapse has left users with little recourse, as funds routed through Tornado Cash are effectively unrecoverable.
Broader Impact on Hyperliquid Ecosystem
While Hyperliquid itself continues to operate as a high-performance Layer-1 blockchain focused on perpetual futures and spot trading, the Hypervault scandal threatens to undermine trust in its broader ecosystem. Analysts warn that unaudited third-party protocols can damage confidence in otherwise strong infrastructure. Community members have urged users to revoke wallet permissions linked to Hypervault, but the consensus remains that the lost funds cannot be recovered. As of publication, neither Hyperliquid nor affiliated representatives have issued formal statements.