DeFi United Raises Over $300M as Consensys and Joseph Lubin Contribute 30,000 ETH

Gate News message, April 28 — Consensys and Ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin announced a combined contribution of 30,000 ETH to DeFi United on Monday, marking one of the largest offerings in the coordinated effort to cover Kelp DAO exploit losses. Circle Ventures also pledged support by purchasing AAVE tokens to help alleviate the impact of the recent exploit.

With these contributions, DeFi United has now raised over 132,000 ETH worth more than $300 million. Additional commitments include Aave service providers proposing 25,000 ETH (worth approximately $58 million) from the protocol's DAO, Lido DAO proposing up to 2,500 ETH, Ether.fi proposing 5,000 ETH, and Kelp pledging 2,000 ETH. Dozens of unnamed individuals have also contributed smaller amounts of ETH and stablecoins.

The Kelp DAO exploit occurred when 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 bad debt. DeFi United's recovery efforts aim to restore rsETH's backing and normalize market conditions. As of Monday, the broader DeFi ecosystem had raised approximately $235 million worth of Ethereum for the effort. Data shows total value locked on DeFi protocols currently sits at about $82 billion, down over 25% from $110 billion at the start of the year.