Venus Protocol suffers $2.15M bad debt after suspected THE price manipulation and liquidations on March 15

Venus Protocol incurred about $2.15 million in bad debt on March 15 following liquidations tied to CAKE and THE collateral, ChainThink reports citing onchain analyst Yujin. An address that received 7,400 ETH from Tornado Cash allegedly borrowed roughly $9.92 million in USDT, DAI and USDC on Aave, bought THE across multiple wallets, pushed up THE's price on a centralized exchange around 20:00, then deposited 36.1 million THE on Venus to borrow BTC, BNB and CAKE. About 40 minutes later THE's price dropped sharply, triggering liquidations that wiped out collateral from two wallets but left roughly $5.07 million in loans outstanding, including about $2.15 million in unpaid debt, while the address had borrowed 2,172 BNB, 1.516 million CAKE and 20 BTC and likely profited from short positions on the exchange rather than onchain.