Circle Ventures is acquiring AAVE tokens to support the decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem. This move aligns Circle Ventures with DeFi United, an initiative formed by Aave service providers to address the recent rsETH incident.
"Strong DeFi infrastructure does not build itself," Circle Ventures stated. "Aave is helping to shape the future of onchain finance, and we’re backing that ecosystem and the entire community built around it."
Consensys, the parent company of MetaMask, and its CEO Joseph Lubin have also committed up to 30,000 ETH to the rsETH recovery effort. Lubin's company, Sharplink, is providing ongoing strategic advisory to Aave.
On April 18, an attacker exploited a bridge to release approximately 116,500 fraudulent rsETH tokens, impacting collateral pools across several protocols. Aave, managing over $10 billion in total value locked, experienced significant damage, with its WETH pool utilization reaching 100% and bad debt exceeding $177 million.
DeFi United was established to restore rsETH’s collateral backing and normalize market conditions. The campaign has secured over $237 million in commitments from more than 116,000 wallets. Additional support includes pending votes from Arbitrum DAO for 30,765 ETH and Mantle for 30,000 ETH, as well as a vote from Aave DAO for 25,000 ETH. Aave founder Stani Kulechov personally committed 5,000 ETH. Other contributors include Ether.Fi, Lido, Kelp, Golem Foundation, and BGD Labs, pledging amounts from 350 to 5,000 ETH.