Aave said on July 27 that ConsenSys and Ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin have joined the “DeFi United” recovery effort, committing 30,000 ETH to help close the collateral gap facing rsETH after the Kelp DAO exploit. The contribution will be combined with pledges from Mantle, Aave DAO, and other ecosystem participants as the plan moves to restore backing for rsETH and stabilize affected markets.
A 30,000 ETH commitment with added advisory support
According to Aave’s announcement, the new commitment totals 30,000 ETH, valued in the source material at nearly $90 million at current prices. ConsenSys and Lubin are also bringing in @Sharplink to provide ongoing strategic advisory support. Aave described the contribution as a key part of the broader DeFi United initiative and said the recovery process would not have progressed as smoothly without it.
Kelp DAO exploit left rsETH undercollateralized
The crisis traces back to the Kelp DAO cross-chain bridge hack on the 18th of this month. The report said the attacker exploited a 1-of-1 DVN configuration weakness in the LayerZero bridge setup and removed about 116,500 rsETH from the bridge contract, worth roughly $292 million at the time. That represented about 18% of rsETH’s circulating supply, pushing the liquid restaking token into an underbacked state even though it was meant to track ETH on a 1:1 basis.
Because rsETH had been widely used as collateral across lending protocols, the damage quickly spread through DeFi credit markets. Aave, SparkLend, and Fluid froze rsETH markets in response, while billions of dollars in total value locked were affected and bad debt risk escalated across the ecosystem.
DeFi United says commitments now exceed 100,000 ETH
To repair the shortfall, Aave service providers and ecosystem partners launched the DeFi United fund with a target of about 100,000 ETH. The goal is to restore full 1:1 asset backing for rsETH. Before the latest pledge, Mantle Network had committed 30,000 ETH, while Aave DAO approved 25,000 ETH through governance.
The report also listed support from Arbitrum DAO through the release of frozen funds, along with contributions from Lido, Ether.fi, Aave founder Stani Kulechov, and Golem Foundation. With ConsenSys now added, DeFi United has accumulated more than 100,000 ETH in pledged support, bringing the rsETH bad debt response into a decisive phase.