2026-04-24 06:53:00
Ethereum Prices Sink Below $2,300 as KelpDAO Hack Fallout Triggers DeFi United Recovery Effort
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Ethereum (ETH) is trading around $2,300, having declined roughly 3 percent over the past 24 hours and continuing to underperform Bitcoin as capital rotates away from higher-beta assets amid the prolonged fallout from the KelpDAO exploit, which has now cascaded into what the Aave protocol is calling a “DeFi United” recovery effort involving some of the most prominent names in decentralised finance. The exploit, which took place on April 18 and is now confirmed as the largest DeFi hack of 2026, involved an attacker using a vulnerability in KelpDAO’s LayerZero bridge to drain 116,500 rsETH tokens worth approximately $292 million, representing roughly 18 percent of the token’s entire circulating supply, before depositing those stolen tokens as collateral on Aave V3 and borrowing approximately $190 million in real ETH against them. The practical effect of this attack chain was to leave Aave, DeFi’s largest lending protocol, holding collateral whose backing was impaired by the exploit, creating an estimated $196 million in bad debt that immediately triggered emergency market freezes, a withdrawal wave, and a collapse in total value locked from $26.4 billion on the day of the exploit to approximately $17.5 billion within days. Aave founder Stani Kulechov has been coordinating the industry response, describing a “DeFi United” initiative that seeks to make affected users whole through a coordinated pool of contributions from across the ecosystem, posting on X: “Aave is my life’s work and we’re working nonstop to find the best possible outcome for users. I’m working to see this resolved and market conditions normalized as soon as possible.” He also offered a personal 5,000 ETH contribution to the relief fund. Lido Finance submitted a formal proposal on Thursday to Aave’s governance forum seeking DAO authorisation to contribute up to 2,500 stETH, worth approximately $5.8 million at current prices, to a dedicated relief vehicle, with Lido specifying that its contribution will only be deployed as part of a fully funded package that closes the rsETH deficit entirely rather than leaving users exposed to residual losses through a partial fix. EtherFi separately proposed a 5,000 ETH contribution to the same recovery mechanism, with Lido’s forum post framing the situation as one where inaction would directly increase losses for their own EarnETH vault depositors and create negative spillover across stETH-linked products, giving the staking protocol a direct financial interest in seeing a comprehensive resolution. The total shortfall in the rsETH system exceeds 100,000 ETH according to multiple estimates, a figure so large that no single party can bridge it without a coordinated multi-stakeholder effort, making the DeFi United framework both strategically necessary and a test of whether the decentralised finance ecosystem can demonstrate genuine crisis response coordination when the stakes are at their highest. Arbitrum’s Security Council took the significant step of freezing approximately 30,766 ETH worth around $71 million that was tied to the exploit, giving affected protocols some hope that the final quantum of losses may ultimately fall below initial worst-case estimates if recovery efforts through both on-chain freezes and voluntary contributions prove sufficient. The broader ETH price impact reflects both the specific overhang from the Aave situation and the general risk-off sentiment that has persisted as Iran war negotiations stall, with the $8.6 billion combined BTC/ETH options expiry scheduled for April 24 adding an additional volatility catalyst that technical analysts are watching closely for signals about whether ETH can hold the $2,285 support level or risks a deeper pullback toward $2,250. Ethereum’s all-time high of approximately $4,953 in August 2025 remains a distant reference point for a token that has lost more than half its peak value since then, with Standard Chartered maintaining longer-term bullish projections of $40,000 by the end of the decade, though the near-term trajectory is clearly constrained by both macro headwinds and the structural damage the KelpDAO incident has done to confidence in liquid restaking tokens as a safe category of DeFi collateral.