Aave, a lending platform, has successfully raised approximately $160 million to address the $200 million in bad debt resulting from the Kelp DAO exploit, as reported by Arkham on Saturday. The largest contributors to this effort are Mantle and Aave DAO, which have collectively raised 55,000 ETH, valued at $127 million.
Following a $292 million security breach that left Aave facing a financial crisis, the company joined forces with major crypto firms to launch a coordinated recovery effort, dubbed DeFi United, aimed at stabilizing DeFi markets. The initiative, led by Aave service providers, seeks to restore support for rsETH, a yield-bearing derivative token of ether (ETH) central to the exploit. Aave founder Stani Kulecho has personally contributed 5,000 ETH to DeFi United, valued at approximately $11,730,000 at the current ether price. The exploit, which originated from a vulnerability in KelpDAO's integration with LayerZero, resulted in the attacker minting 116,500 unbacked rsETH tokens, leaving Aave with impaired collateral and triggering a massive withdrawal of $10 billion.
The primary focus of the bailout effort is to stabilize the system, recapitalize rsETH, and minimize losses. This incident is the largest DeFi exploit of the year, surpassed only by the second-largest exploit in late March, where an attacker drained at least $270 million from the Drift Protocol on Solana by exploiting a legitimate feature called 'durable nonces'.