Aave service providers put forth a governance proposal on Friday to contribute 25,000 ETH—worth nearly $58 million—from the protocol’s DAO to DeFi United, a coordinated relief effort to restore backing for rsETH following the Kelp DAO exploit. The proposed contribution would help close the remaining shortfall from an incident where an attacker minted unbacked rsETH through a compromised LayerZero bridge and used it as collateral on Aave to borrow real assets, leaving the protocol with significant bad debt, according to The Block.
Ecosystem Contributions
Aave’s proposed contribution joins a growing stack of donations from ecosystem protocols and individual backers. On Thursday, Lido DAO and Ether.fi proposed contributions of up to 2,500 ETH and 5,000 ETH, respectively.
Individual contributors from Aave have also committed funds. Emilio Frangella, Aave’s Senior VP of Engineering, said he would be committing 500 ETH, while Stani Kulechov, the protocol’s founder and CEO, is contributing 5,000 ETH, calling Aave his “life’s work.”
Additional Support and Fund Totals
Separately on Friday, Mantle proposed a low-interest credit facility of up to 30,000 ETH to help Aave absorb any remaining bad debt.
Including contributions from Golem, BGD Labs, and individual users, the DeFi United fund stands at roughly 69,534 ETH, or nearly $161 million, as of April 24, 2026.
Shortfall Assessment
Across all proposed contributions and the freezing of roughly 30,700 ETH on Arbitrum following the attack, X user DCF GOD estimates the hole has been filled, assuming all proposals pass. This could potentially reduce the amount that Aave would need to borrow from Mantle.
Broader Market Context
Data from The Block shows that total value locked on DeFi protocols now sits just above $80 billion, down over 27% from the $110 billion seen at the start of the year. Analysts at JPMorgan said that these repeated exploits are weighing down institutional interest in DeFi and causing users to shift funds into stablecoins.
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