About $3.6 million has disappeared from the DeFi platform Hypervault, sparking fears of a classic rug pull. As per a recent X post by blockchain security firm PeckShield, the stolen funds were first bridged from Hyperliquid to Ethereum , then swapped for ETH.
Soon after, around 752 ETH, nearly $3 million, was sent through Tornado Cash , a service often used to hide stolen funds.
Hypervault’s entire online presence disappeared almost immediately after the suspicious transfers.
The project’s website became inaccessible, its X account @hypervaultfi was deleted, and its Discord channel was taken offline. Investors trying to access promotional links now find only dead pages, suggesting that the team behind the platform may have exited with user funds.
Prior to the incident, Hypervault had marketed itself as an “unmanaged” auto-compounding vault system. It promised annual yields of up to 76% on stablecoins and 95% for HYPE liquidity pools.
At the time of the suspected exploit, the platform held roughly $5.91 million in total value locked (TVL) across over 1,100 depositors, according to DeFiLlama.
Hypervault had portrayed itself as a long-term project, sharing plans to lower yields for sustainability and even launching a new crypto token later this year. Developers claimed an audit was underway with well-known security firms Spearbit, Pashov, and Code4rena.
However, when community members contacted the mentioned auditors, Pashov replied that they had never heard of Hypervault. Code4rena’s website also listed no pending audits for the protocol. These discrepancies triggered early warnings from crypto investors.
HypingBull publicly called the project’s actions “shady” earlier this month and withdrew funds before the platform went offline.
Despite these alerts, Hypervault continued to operate normally until the final hours, encouraging users to explore other HyperEVM protocols and suggesting an imminent official audit. The abrupt shutdown and untraceable transfers now point to a likely exit scam.
The Hypervault collapse is only the latest in the list of high-profile rug pulls this year. Earlier in August, the Test Token (TST), a meme coin that originated from a Binance tutorial, abruptly drained investor funds in a 15-minute price freefall, leaving holders with worthless tokens.
Earlier this year, First Lady Melania Trump-linked meme coin, Official Melania Meme was accused of a similar exit scam. This suggests how even projects with famous names or heavy promotion can suddenly vanish.
