BroadChain, April 24, 17:52 - Aave founder Stani Kulechov recently announced that he will personally inject 5,000 ETH (approximately $11.5 million) into an industry bailout fund named "DeFi United" to cover the bad debt gap caused by the KelpDAO cross-chain bridge exploit. The hacking incident resulted in the theft of approximately 99,600 ETH. Although the Arbitrum Security Council froze 30,700 ETH, there remains a gap of about 68,900 ETH (approximately $160 million) to be filled.
Lido, EtherFi, Golem Foundation, and Mantle have publicly committed to participating, but the actual funds have not yet been fully deployed. Lido's proposal for 2,500 stETH and EtherFi's proposal for 5,000 ETH are still undergoing DAO voting, while Mantle's loan of 30,000 ETH is still in the governance discussion phase. Lido has also attached a condition: funds will only be released once the complete bailout plan is finalized.
The total commitments from all parties currently stand at approximately 43,500 ETH, still leaving a gap of about 25,000 ETH. If the bad debt cannot be covered, the risk of rsETH de-pegging could spread across the entire DeFi ecosystem—Aave holds about 83% of the circulating rsETH, and a single vault like EarnETH could face forced liquidations of up to 9,000 ETH.
This is similar in logic to the 2008 TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program): systemic risk forces competitors to step in. However, the key difference is that DeFi United lacks the coercive power of a Treasury or Federal Reserve, relying entirely on each DAO community's vote to decide whether to "fill the hole for others." This may be the first time the crypto industry faces such a choice: a bailout is needed, but the bailout itself is a crowdfunding effort.