Consensys and Joseph Lubin Contribute 30,000 ETH to DeFi United, Pushing Kelp Recovery Effort Past $300M

Gate News message, April 27 — Consensys and Ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin have jointly contributed 30,000 ETH to the DeFi United recovery effort on Monday, marking one of the largest individual donations toward compensating losses from the Kelp DAO exploit. With this contribution, DeFi United has now raised over 132,000 ETH, worth more than $300 million.

Circle Ventures, the venture arm of USDC stablecoin issuer Circle, also pledged support by purchasing AAVE tokens to help stabilize market conditions. "Strong DeFi infrastructure does not build itself," Circle Ventures stated. "Aave is helping to shape the future of onchain finance, and we're backing that ecosystem and the entire community built around it." Consensys-backed treasury firm Sharplink will provide strategic advisory services to the recovery effort, Aave announced.

The Kelp DAO shortfall arose when an attacker exploited a LayerZero bridge vulnerability to mint unbacked rsETH, which was then used as collateral on Aave to borrow real assets, leaving the protocol with significant bad debt. Other contributors include Lido DAO (up to 2,500 ETH), Ether.fi (5,000 ETH), Kelp itself (2,000 ETH), and Aave service providers (25,000 ETH from the protocol's DAO). Dozens of unnamed individuals have also contributed smaller amounts of ETH and stablecoins.