Acala Depeg: aUSD Stablecoin depegs after exploit

The stablecoin de-pegging season is not over after the Acala Depeg triggered a massive price drop for its stablecoin aUSD.

After the Luna crypto crash and rumours of a USDT depeg and USDD depeg hitting the roof, it looks like the stablecoin crash season is upon us and is still going strong.

Acala's aUSD plummeted shortly after the firm announced that it's been targeted by online hackers that minted nearly $1.3 billion aUSD coins after exploiting a vulnerability in the Acala ecosystem.

Acala USD depegs after exploit

Acala USD (aUSD) is the latest victim of an online hack that resulted in the exchange freezing its withdrawals after online hackers exploited a core vulnerability of the system.

The hackers exploited a newly deployed iBTC-aUSD liquidity pool to mint 1.28 billion aUSD tokens. Acala developers further outlined that the bug was caused by a misconfiguration in the liquidity pool which was deployed on Sunday, inviting a hoard of activity that led to Acala suffering major price loss.

After noticing the system anomaly, the Acala team developers had to disable the transfer functionality, putting the entire network in maintenance mode. The team has further requested the white hat hackers to return the hacked funds.

The following exploit has negatively impacted the Acala stablecoin token aUSD which had depegged from its usual $1 value, plummeting to a new low of $0.09. However, at press time, the Acala depeg has become less severe. The stablecoin has regained some of its momentum, and is currently sitting at $0.9086.

Several on-chain meddlers and crypto enthusiasts have further pointed out that the hacker's wallet still contains 1.27 billion aUSD and that alongside the hackers, several other users had also exploited the platform by stealing thousands of DOT tokens.

• Read More: USDC vs USDT: USDC Comes Closer To Tether Market Cap

2022: The year of stablecoin depegs

Acala's aUSD is not the only stablecoin that has plunged to new lows this year. The de-peg season was officiated first by Do Kwon's terra luna crypto crash, which led Terra UST to hit rock bottom.

Alongside Terra, the ongoing bearish market coupled with harsh crypto winter had forged paths for several crypto stablecoins to depeg. These include Tether, one of the largest stablecoins by market cap which had earlier tumbled in May to a low of $0.95 from its initial dollar peg.

Apart from that, the USDD depeg also drew significant headlines when its price swayed in June.

However, plenty of new cryptocurrencies are still coming, including stablecoins. From the SHI stablecoin, to the new EUROC stablecoin, these depegs have not deterred their creators.