DeFi United Raises $21 Million With $215 Million More Pledged to Recover From Kelp Exploit

[AIcash]

The "DeFi United" recovery fund set up in the wake of the Kelp DAO hack has already received approximately $21 million in contributions, with another $215 million pledged subject to governance votes. Early contributors include Aave Labs CEO Stani Kulechov, Aave Labs head of contracts Emilio Frangella, Kelp DAO, Golem Foundation, BGD Labs, and Bitcoin-native DeFi protocol Babylon. The larger pledges of $215 million have come from Arbitrum, Mantle, Ether.fi, and Lido, while LayerZero, Ethena, Ink Foundation, and Frax Finance have also signaled their intention to participate in the relief effort.

The scale of the coordinated response reflects both the severity of the exploit and the interconnected nature of DeFi lending markets. The Kelp hack left more than $190 million in bad debt on Aave after the attacker used stolen rsETH tokens as collateral to borrow wrapped Ether — a move that triggered a wave of withdrawals and sent Aave's total value locked tumbling nearly $12 billion in a single week. The DeFi United effort represents one of the largest coordinated recovery responses in the sector's history, bringing together competing protocols under a shared goal of stabilizing rsETH and preventing further contagion across the ecosystem.

[kevin1]

used stolen rsETH as collateral to borrow wETH. the attacker read the whitepaper more carefully than most of the protocol's own users

[etfs]

$21M in the fund. $215M pledged "subject to governance votes." the governance votes are doing a lot of heavy lifting in that headline number.