Ethereum infrastructure provider Consensys, founder Joseph Lubin, and Circle Ventures have joined the DeFi United recovery initiative to repair collateral damage from the April 18 exploit of Kelp DAO's rsETH adapter bridge, which drained approximately $293 million in one of the largest DeFi hacks of 2026.
Consensys and Lubin pledged up to 30,000 ETH to the recovery stack. Circle Ventures acquired AAVE tokens to support the decentralized finance ecosystem, placing itself among key backers of the rescue effort. The coordinated initiative centers on restoring backing for rsETH positions used across major lending markets, including Aave, where cascading liquidations and frozen markets followed the exploit.
In a governance update tied to the rsETH incident, Aave contributors described the Consensys-Lubin commitment as "critical to the recovery plan," adding that "without this support, the current recovery process would be difficult to advance." The attacker created about 116,500 fraudulent rsETH tokens through the cross-chain bridge, then used them as collateral to borrow an estimated $236 million in ETH and WETH from Aave, Compound v3, and Euler, rather than dumping the tokens on the market.
Bad debt across affected markets exceeded $177 million after the exploit. Aave faced heavy stress as WETH pool utilization reached 100%. The DeFi United coalition has now gathered more than $237 million in commitments from over 116,000 wallets, including pledges from protocols such as EtherFi, Lido, and Ethena (14,570 ETH). Mantle has extended a credit facility of up to 30,000 ETH, and Arbitrum DAO has a pending vote for 30,765 ETH. Aave DAO is separately weighing a proposal to contribute 25,000 ETH from its own treasury, structured as an "anchored" contribution that will not be scaled back even if further donations arrive. Aave founder Stani Kulechov committed 5,000 ETH from personal holdings.
Strategic advisory on the recovery architecture is being provided by Sharplink, the digital asset treasury firm chaired by Lubin, which has helped design multi-tranche funding structures and collateral backstops. Consensys is leveraging its position as a core Ethereum infrastructure provider—behind products such as MetaMask and Linea—to coordinate stakeholder communication and ensure a consistent roadmap for unlocking frozen positions over time.
