Aave’s Bailout Fund Nears Full Coverage
Updated April 27, 2026
The April 18 rsETH exploit extracted 152,577 rsETH from the LayerZero lockbox, leaving Aave with a bad-debt hole of up to $230M and triggering crypto's first coordinated industry-wide bailout. Coordinated recovery actions have since clawed back approximately 87,955 ETH — roughly 54% of the original 163,183 ETH shortfall — narrowing the residual funding gap to approximately 75,081 ETH.
Kelp recovered and froze 40,373 rsETH (~43,168 ETH), the Arbitrum Security Council froze 30,766 ETH still held by the hacker, and liquidations of the hacker's positions on Aave and Compound are expected to recover up to 12,323 WETH and 1,845 WETH respectively. Of these streams, only the Kelp freeze is immediately deployable as rsETH backing, with the remaining recoveries potentially taking several weeks to finalize.
To bridge the remaining gap, the DeFi United coalition has raised $232.58M across 102,542 ETH from over 116,000 wallets, drawing firm commitments, pending DAO votes, and confirmed pledges from across the DeFi ecosystem. Aave and Kelp have aligned on a recovery path for rsETH holders, with the DeFi United coalition now accounting for approximately 102,115 ETH (~$245M) in combined firm and pending commitments, effectively covering the estimated 75,081 ETH ($124M) bad-debt hole. Users guide and instructions are expected to be released shortly.
This is a developing story. Below are the details and disclosed amount from firm commitments (confirmed contributors) and pending contributors from DAO votes:
✅ Firm Commitments — 8,850 ETH (~$21.2M)
🟡 Pending DAO Votes — 93,265 ETH (~$223.8M)
🟠 Confirmed Contributors, Amount TBD (To Be Disclosed)
💰 Running Total — At $2,400/ETH
This is a developing story. Figures in this article reflect data available as of April 27, 2026, and are subject to change. Pending DAO votes from Arbitrum, Mantle, Aave, EtherFi, and Lido have not yet been approved and their contributions cannot be considered confirmed.
TBD commitments from LayerZero, Ethena, Frax Finance, and Ink Foundation remain undisclosed. Recovery timelines for frozen and liquidatable funds may extend several weeks and are dependent on actions by third parties outside the coalition's control, including KelpDAO reopening rsETH withdrawals and the Arbitrum Security Council releasing frozen ETH.
Readers should refer to defiunited.world for the most current figures.
