Aave Founder Stani Kulechov Pledges 5,000 ETH to DeFi United as Mantle Network Adds 30,000 ETH Backstop

Key Takeaways:

• Aave founder Stani Kulechov personally pledged 5,000 ETH to DeFi United.
• Mantle Network committed 30,000 ETH, pushing total recovery pledges past 43,500 ETH.
• Frax Protocol is preparing a community proposal to formally join the DeFi United coalition.

Founders Put Personal Capital on the Line

The DeFi United initiative represents one of the most coordinated cross-protocol responses in the history of decentralized finance ( DeFi). Kulechov took to X to make the announcement clear, noting the funds are his own rather than Aave treasury assets.

The pledge landed as pressure mounted on the Aave ecosystem following the KelpDAO exploit on April 18, which drained $292 million worth of rsETH through a vulnerability in the protocol’s Layerzero bridge adapter. Aave markets had accepted rsETH as collateral, leaving the protocol exposed to a significant bad-debt shortfall across both its Ethereum and Arbitrum pools.

The Arbitrum Security Council moved swiftly, freezing 30,766 ETH worth $71 million tied to the exploiter, though the structural shortfall in Aave’s collateral markets required a capital injection beyond onchain seizures alone.

Contributing alongside Kulechov, the Golem Foundation and Golem Factory each added to the recovery pool, contributing a combined 1,000 ETH from their treasuries. Lido Finance and Etherfi are among the other protocols that have signaled support for the initiative.

Mantle Pledges the Largest Single Backstop

Mantle Network also announced what has emerged as the single largest contribution to DeFi United to date, committing 30,000 ETH valued at approximately $70.5 million at current prices. Even though the Ethereum layer-2 network had no direct exposure to the KelpDAO exploit, its decision to step in has unearthed a growing consensus among DeFi protocols that systemic risk in one major lending market can rapidly cascade to others.

The collapse of rsETH’s collateral value had already helped erase approximately $14 billion from total value locked across tracked DeFi protocols, according to data from Defillama, pulling the sector from $99.49 billion to roughly $85.32 billion.

Frax Protocol joined the momentum shortly after, with Kulechov noting that Frax is preparing a community governance proposal to formalize its support for DeFi United. Like Mantle, Frax had no direct exposure to rsETH, making its participation a voluntary act of ecosystem solidarity rather than self-preservation.