I remember I was quite optimistic about the Sui ecosystem and its projects. When Sui allocated subsidies to support DeFi protocols, I decided to try earning through staking. I took out a loan in a stablecoin on the exchange, deposited it into Bucket together with the afsui I had bought in advance. It seemed simple and safe—regular daily income of about 160 tokens. The income consisted of two parts: subsidies for collateralizing afsui and interest on the stablecoin loan.

Usually, I withdrew the income around the same time each evening. But one day I was busy and forgot to check my account. The next morning, when I opened the protocol, an unpleasant surprise was waiting for me—the subsidy was gone, leaving only the basic interest. At first, I thought it was a bug or a page-update delay, but after a few reloads it became clear that something had gone wrong.

The first possibility was liquidation. But I checked: a few days earlier, I had intentionally topped up the collateral to reduce the ratio to 0.44. At that time, the price of Sui was above 0.57 on different platforms, so liquidation was still far away. I checked my wallet history—there were no transfers, no sales, and no hacks. Nothing suspicious in the Bucket protocol either. I was at a loss.

Then I contacted the project team via Twitter. Fortunately, they replied quickly and suggested discussing the details on Discord. After talking with the developers, the bitter truth emerged: my afsui was affected by the soft liquidation mechanism. They showed me screenshots: I sold 86 thousand afsui at $0.6, then all of it went through several swap operations, and in the end I was left with only 33 thousand afsui and 50 thousand stablecoins.

The problem is that I borrowed Sui on the exchange, and now I need to return 132 thousand tokens. There wasn’t enough left in my wallet. When I wrote about this, the Sui price had already risen above 0.73, and now it’s even above a dollar. Every day you wait for the price to drop, just to close the position at least.

The team explained that soft liquidation is a mechanism designed to protect the BUCK protocol from extreme market conditions. Maybe it’s correct from the perspective of system stability, but for me it turned out to be devastating. They offered compensation of 3 thousand stablecoins, even though my real loss was about 13.7 thousand. I’m not in a position to negotiate, so I accepted their offer. Honestly, I’m grateful that they at least responded and tried to help.

The most important lesson: high interest is not a gift—it’s a signal of hidden risks. I’ve been in crypto long enough to know this truth, yet I still fell for it. The principal amount is your real capital, and the interest is only a bonus. If you lose the principal, no interest will save you. Now I’m much more cautious with unpopular protocols, even if they look safe. You need to understand the mechanics more deeply, especially under liquidation conditions and other risks.