• Cryptocurrencies,  Security

    Aave: ‘A Thief Does Not Own What He Steals’

    Lending protocol fights effort to seize $73M stolen in Kelp DAO attack

    “A thief does not own what he steals.” So said Aave founder Stani Kulechov in a statement following an emergency court filing seeking to unfreeze $73 million retrieved by Arbitrum DAO in the wake of a $293 million exploit. The Kelp DAO hack on April 18 left decentralized finance lending platform Aave stuck with $230 million in bad debt after hackers, believed to be from North Korea, used stolen and unbacked rsETH tokens to take out loans on Aave. That led to a bank-run style wave of withdrawals on Aave that effectively froze the protocol. The crypto community has rallied around Aave and Kelp DAO, raising $300 million in donations…

  • Ethereum,  Security

    Crypto Rallies to Help Aave After Hack

    $230M donations pledged to help lending protocol unfreeze

    Cryptocurrency firms large and small have started donating to DeFi United, a fund set up to help lending protocol Aave recover from the fallout of the $293 million Kelp DAO hack. After the April 18 theft, hackers thought to be from North Korea moved $230 million in stolen rsETH tokens — valued the same as ether, currently $2,300 — onto Aave, taking out loans using the unbacked tokens as collateral. That left Aave with a huge amount of bad debt, which in turn led to a bank-run-style series of withdrawals that left the protocol frozen. Now a group of firms, beginning with staking provider Lido Finance, have pledged donations and…

  • Cryptocurrencies,  Security

    Aave Run Hurts Institutional Adoption of DeFi: JPMorgan

    Incident ‘raises questions about the future of DeFi’

    The recent $293 million hack of Kelp DAO has knocked $20 billion off of the total value locked (TVL) in decentralized finance, according to JPMorgan. DeFi was the unintended victim of the Kelp DAO hack, with some $230 million worth of fake tokens used to borrow on the Aave lending platform. That bad debt saw Aave lose $10 billion in total value locked, referring to the value of tokens deposited in Aave’s lending pools. But the damage isn’t limited to Aave, said JPMorgan analysts led by Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou in an April 23 report. In the days following the April 18 exploit of Kelp DAO, another $10 billion has moved off…

  • Cryptocurrencies,  Security

    Latest Hack Pushes April Crypto Losses Over $600M

    More than a dozen thefts this month alone

    Just days after the Kelp DAO bridge was hit with a massive $293 million exploit, yet another protocol has been hacked. While the amount stolen was comparatively small — just $3.5 million — there have been more than a dozen reported hacks/exploits this month alone. And it pushed the amount stolen over $600 million, with another eight days to go. Decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol Volo said on April 22 that three of its vaults had been robbed, but that another $28 million in other vaults is safe. All funds have been frozen until Volo figures out what happened and how to prevent a recurrence. “We want to be clear,” Volo…