Consensys and Joseph Lubin pledge up to 30K ETH to DeFi United’s rsETH rescue stack, shoring up Aave and DeFi after Kelp DAO’s $293M exploit left deep collateral holes.
Summary
- Consensys and Joseph Lubin will commit up to 30,000 ETH to DeFi United’s rsETH recovery stack.
- The support is pivotal to repairing collateral damage from Kelp DAO’s $293 million exploit.
- Aave has warned that, without this backing, the recovery “would be difficult to advance.”
Ethereum infrastructure firm Consensys and its founder Joseph Lubin have joined the DeFi United recovery initiative, pledging up to 30,000 ETH to help repair rsETH collateral after the Kelp DAO bridge exploit drained roughly $293 million from the ecosystem on April 18. The coordinated rescue effort centers on restoring backing for rsETH positions that were used across major lending markets, including Aave, where cascading liquidations and frozen markets followed the hack.
In a governance update tied to the rsETH incident, contributors to Aave described the Consensys and Lubin commitment as “critical to the recovery plan,” adding that “without this support, the current recovery process would be difficult to advance” given the remaining collateral shortfall. The DeFi United framework, first outlined in an Aave DAO recovery proposal, combines protocol donations, credit lines, and treasury support into a unified playbook for handling systemic collateral failures after large-scale exploits.
DeFi United shores up rsETH after record Kelp DAO exploit
Kelp DAO’s rsETH adapter bridge was exploited for about 116,500 rsETH—worth $293 million at the time—making it the largest DeFi hack of 2026 so far, as noted by security firms and coverage from exchanges including MEXC and aggregators like U.Today. Rather than dumping rsETH on the market, the attacker used the tokens as collateral across Aave, Compound v3, and Euler to borrow an estimated $236 million in ETH and WETH, forcing protocols to pause markets and freezing users’ collateral until a recovery path could be agreed.
To close the deficit, the DeFi United coalition has already secured 14,570 ETH in pledges from ecosystem protocols such as EtherFi, Lido, and Ethena, while Mantle has extended a credit facility of up to 30,000 ETH, according to a recent outline of the plan. Aave DAO is separately weighing a proposal to contribute 25,000 ETH from its own treasury, structured as an “anchored” contribution that will not be scaled back even if further donations arrive, with any excess instead used to repay borrowed capital and limit Aave’s long-term exposure.
Strategic advisory on the recovery architecture is being provided by Sharplink, the digital asset treasury firm chaired by Lubin, which has helped design multi-tranche funding structures and collateral backstops in previous Ethereum ecosystem initiatives. Consensys, meanwhile, is leveraging its position as a core Ethereum infrastructure provider behind products such as MetaMask and Linea to coordinate stakeholder communication and ensure that rsETH users, impacted protocols, and donors share a consistent roadmap for unlocking frozen positions over time.
