Overview
- Aave’s service providers proposed transferring 25,000 ETH to the DeFi United fund, and with Mantle’s up-to-30,000 ETH credit line plus other pledges, trackers suggest the remaining gap could be covered if approvals pass.
- rsETH, a token meant to represent staked ETH, was counterfeited via a KelpDAO–LayerZero bridge flaw; the attacker posted the fake tokens on Aave and borrowed about $190 million, leaving a hole estimated above 112,000 rsETH.
- Aave paused rsETH markets across Ethereum, Arbitrum, Base, Mantle and Linea to contain risk, as Arbitrum’s security council froze about 30,766 ETH tied to the exploit but large flows moved through Thorchain into Bitcoin, complicating recovery.
- Following the exploit disclosed April 18, users withdrew roughly $10 billion from Aave and about $13 billion from DeFi lending in 48 hours, draining liquidity and lifting borrowing costs for stablecoins.
- Lido, EtherFi, Golem and individual contributors including Aave founder Stani Kulechov pledged ETH to the relief effort, while the episode renewed calls for stronger bridge verification and clear, independently attested collateral standards to curb layered-risk failures.