Mystery whale pulls $290 million from DeFi every midnight as Aave borrowing rates triple

An unidentified crypto whale has repeatedly withdrawn about $290 million in USDC from Aave and Sky, temporarily draining liquidity and raising borrowing costs.Blockchain analytics firm Bitquery reported on Oct. 28 that the withdrawals occurred around midnight UTC, with approximately $134 million leaving Aave and the remainder coming from Sky. The funds typically returned about half an hour later.These recurring movements have pushed Aave's USDC lending pool close to full utilization, restricting withdrawals for other depositors and nearly tripling borrowing interest rates.Aave liquidity squeezedAccording to Bitquery, the wallet cluster behind the transactions has moved USDC across midnight for 394 consecutive nights since Sept. 30, 2025. Notably, the earliest identified midnight transfers occurred in July 2024.During October, the withdrawals pushed Aave's median USDC utilization rate from 94% to 99.6%, meaning almost all deposited funds were borrowed and little liquidity remained available.On six nights, utilization hit 100%, leaving virtually no unborrowed USDC for depositors trying to withdraw.The Oct. 26-27 transactions illustrate the disruption.Before the withdrawals, Aave had ...