Aave DeFi slippage loss, USR mint exploit, and Tempo payments push: Onchain risk rises

A trader managing about $50M in aETH used the Aave interface to swap collateral for Aave (via CoWswap solvers). Despite checking the warning boxes and accepting ~99% slippage, execution delivered only about $37k worth of Aave—reported as a record-class execution loss. The issue is linked to order size, illiquidity, and quote selection failing to pick the best solver result. The trade value largely ended up with a block builder (~$34M) and an MEV bot (~$10M), highlighting sharp UX and routing risks in DeFi. In a separate incident, Reserve Labs halted its Reserve (US R) stablecoin protocol after a bug reportedly enabled an attacker to mint about $80M USR against only ~$100k collateral. As the exploiter sold, USR de-pegged and traded as low as ~$0.14 before recovering. A security firm (Pashov) suggested the exploit resembled a private-key compromise, raising questions about operational security and incident response. Finally, Tempo—Stripe-backed and developed with crypto VC Paradigm—aims to become a default machine/payment layer for both humans and agents. The project plans an open machine-payment protocol that could interoperate with major payment gateways, while critics question its permissioning versus the “neutral” positioning. Keywords: Aave, onchain, DeFi risk, slippage, USR exploit, machine payments.