Aave, a lending platform, has successfully raised approximately $160 million to cover the $200 million in bad debt resulting from the largest decentralized finance (DeFi) exploit of the year, as reported by Arkham on Saturday. The blockchain analytics platform stated, "Aave has raised $160M to cover the bad debt from the Kelp DAO exploit, at defiunited.eth. The largest contributors, Mantle and AAVE DAO, have collectively raised 55,000 ETH, valued at $127M." Following a $292 million security breach that left the largest lender in the crypto borrowing sector facing a financial crisis, Aave and several major crypto firms launched a coordinated recovery effort to stabilize DeFi markets last week. Led by Aave service providers, the initiative, dubbed DeFi United, aims to restore support for rsETH, the yield-bearing derivative token of ether (ETH) at the core of the exploit.
Aave founder Stani Kulecho announced, "I'm personally contributing 5,000 ETH to DeFi United as we continue working together with partners," with his contribution valued at approximately $11,730,000 at the current ether price of $2,346. The exploit was traced back to a vulnerability in KelpDAO's integration with LayerZero, where an attacker minted 116,500 unbacked rsETH tokens, resulting in impaired collateral for Aave and triggering a run on deposits as lenders rushed to exit, ultimately withdrawing $10 billion. The primary focus of the effort to eliminate the bad debt is on stabilizing the system through a coordinated bailout to recapitalize rsETH and mitigate losses.
Earlier this year, in late March, the second-largest exploit occurred when an attacker drained at least $270 million from the Drift Protocol on Solana by exploiting a legitimate feature called 'durable nonces.'