Major players in the DeFi market have announced a consolidation of efforts to restore the collateral for the rsETH token in the Aave protocol, where a deficit of approximately $250 million has arisen following the KelpDAO exploit. The initiative has been named DeFi United, and its goal is to minimize user losses and ensure market stability.
This is reported by Business • Media
Key Participants and Initiative Details
Well-known DeFi projects such as Lido DAO, Golem Foundation, and EtherFi, along with other industry players, have joined the initiative. A personal contribution of 5000 ETH was made by Aave founder Stani Kulechov. Lido DAO has proposed to allocate up to 2500 stETH to a special support fund, although their contribution depends on the final formation of the fund and the corresponding decisions of the community.
“In a statement, the team emphasized that collaboration among ecosystem participants is critical to minimizing user losses. At the time of publication, a number of preliminary commitments regarding participation in the recovery have already been established.”
In addition to the mentioned participants, Mantle has also joined the recovery efforts, and confirmed commitments have been provided by Golem Foundation and EtherFi. The total amount of confirmed contributions currently stands at over 43,500 ETH, with several decisions still being negotiated.
Scale of the Deficit and Fundraising Dynamics
According to analyst Ignas, the collateral deficit for rsETH amounts to approximately 112,000 tokens — equivalent to $250 million. Part of the funds has already been raised, and Aave’s own resources are estimated at around $110 million. However, even considering the raised and frozen assets, the gap still ranges from $60 to $70 million. Memento Research noted that part of the commitments remains conditional and depends on further decisions by the communities, including Lido DAO.
According to KelpDAO data, the initial deficit reached 163,200 ETH, of which 40,300 rsETH (approximately 43,000 ETH) has already been restored, while another 30,700 ETH is temporarily locked by the Arbitrum Security Council. Thus, the current remaining deficit stands at about 89,500 ETH.
The cause of the rsETH incident was a vulnerability in the LayerZero bridge, which allowed an attacker to spoof an incoming packet and withdraw 116,500 rsETH without burning assets on the source network. The total losses from the attack exceeded $290 million.
According to experts, in the coming weeks, the initiators of DeFi United will continue to attract new participants and negotiate the sizes of contributions to fully cover the deficit. Transparency and collaboration remain key principles in addressing this crisis.