KelpDao Funding Move: Lido Proposes $6M Allocation Of Staked ETH To Bridge Shortfall

KelpDAO’s liquid restaking token, rsETH, has become the center of a major DeFi recovery effort after a hack estimated at roughly $290 million. The latest development came on Thursday, when Lido Finance unveiled a proposal aimed at supporting Aave’s (AAVE) coordinated response to the rsETH shortfall. 

The Lido plan was submitted to Aave’s Research Forum following this week’s Kelp incident involving the rsETH LayerZero bridge exploit. 

While the exploit’s details were still unfolding, Aave moved quickly to organize a larger, ecosystem-wide effort—“DeFi United”—with the goal of making affected users whole after the April 18 bridge incident left rsETH underbacked and, in turn, put funds at risk across multiple lending markets.

Aave posted on social media platform X (formerly Twitter) that “multiple strong indicative commitments” had already been lined up, and that Lido Finance was the first public participant. 

The proposal itself authorizes a one-time, capped contribution of up to 2,500 stETH—roughly $6 million at the time of reporting. Importantly, Aave framed this as part of a fully funded recovery package rather than a piecemeal attempt to patch only part of the damage. 

The structure is meant to limit broader spillover and allow an orderly resolution for users impacted by the rsETH deficit. The conditions attached to Lido’s contribution are strict. 

Lido Finance’s funds would only be deployed if the relief vehicle is large enough to cover the entire deficit—specifically, not a partial fix that still leaves users exposed. 

The total shortfall is described as exceeding 100,000 ETH. If any funds remain unused, they would be returned to Lido’s treasury. And the money can only be used to address the rsETH shortfall itself.

Lido’s interest in this outcome is closely tied to its own product exposure. Lido offers an EarnETH vault that has direct exposure to rsETH. Without coordinated support, losses for users in that vault could reach approximately 9,000 ETH.

Aave also moved to limit further risk while recovery planning progressed. Earlier Thursday, it updated that rsETH reserves were paused across multiple Ethereum and rollup environments, including Ethereum Core, Arbitrum, Base, Mantle, and Linea. 

The broader market reaction has been severe. Since the heist news first emerged on Saturday, Aave has reportedly recorded around $9 billion in net outflows as of April 21. Total value locked on the platform fell by more than a third, dropping to about 17.5 billion. 

That figure has since declined further, reaching approximately 14.3 billion at the time of this writing. The damage extended beyond Aave as well: according to DefiLlama data, across all decentralized lending protocols, TVL fell by roughly $13 billion within 48 hours after the exploit.

Featured image from OpenArt, chart from TradingView.com