Aave Announces ‘DeFi United’ Relief Fund to Restore rsETH Backing After Kelp Exploit

Aave is rallying the DeFi ecosystem under a coordinated effort it’s calling “DeFi United” to help make users whole after the April 18 Kelp bridge exploit left rsETH — a liquid restaking token — underbacked, putting funds at risk across multiple lending markets.

Aave announced on X today, April 23, that “multiple strong indicative commitments are now in place” to join the recovery effort, with Lido Finance named as the first public participant.

The announcement came just after Lido contributors submitted a governance proposal to contribute up to 2,500 Lido Staked Ether (STETH), worth appoximately $5.7 million, to the dedicated relief fund “to be used solely to reduce the rsETH deficit.”

Per Lido’s proposal, the total deficit exceeds 100,000 $ETH, and both Aave and Lido noted that there are already indicative commitments from other service providers for the fund.

Without full coverage, Lido warns that EarnETH vault depositors could face losses of up to approximately 9,000 $ETH.

Earlier today, Aave also announced on X that it had paused rsETH reserves across Ethereum Core, Arbitrum, Base, Mantle, and Linea to support recovery efforts.

Aave said in its X post that further commitments will be announced as they are formalized.

This article was written with the assistance of AI workflows. All our stories are curated, edited and fact-checked by a human.

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