debt

Vitalik posted on platform X, stating that building index-tracking assets based on options rather than debt is worth considering and trying, using options as the foundation of DeFi instead of CDPs and liquidation mechanisms. This design can avoid the extreme price fluctuations that cause severe and global liquidation effects, allowing exposure to the index to deviate from preferred exposure in a smoother secondary manner.Its key advantage is that it does not require instant oracles and can operate based on slow oracles, which are the types of oracles used in prediction markets. The design has a clear drawback, which is the need for regular rebalancing, and it remains to be clarified whether and how rebalancing can have sufficient slippage resistance.Vitalik added that compared to relying on oracles that must provide real-time answers and may be induced to give incorrect real-time answers without human remediation time, he believes that holding algorithmic stablecoins placed within such mechanisms is safer.

According to Cointelegraph, Arca Chief Investment Officer Jeff Dorman stated that Strategy's current approximately $15 billion preferred stock financing structure has become "unmanageable." He pointed out that these preferred stocks require about $1.5 billion in dividends each year, and with the ongoing volatility in Bitcoin prices, this structure is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain.Strategy's financing model is based on the premise that "BTC will continue to rise significantly." Although the company previously alleviated short-term default risks by issuing additional shares, its decision to repurchase bonds maturing in 2029 is perplexing. He indicated that Strategy may ultimately have only two options: sell BTC to pay preferred stock dividends or stop paying dividends, both of which would have significant impacts on the company and investors.Meanwhile, Strategy CEO Phong Le stated in an interview with CNBC that the company "may sell Bitcoin" at some point in the future, but overall will continue to increase its BTC holdings and enhance the amount of BTC corresponding to each share.Polymarket data shows that the market now estimates the probability of Strategy selling some BTC by the end of 2026 has risen to about 90%. As of now, Strategy holds a total of 843,738 BTC, with a total cost of approximately $63.87 billion and an average purchase price of about $75,700.

According to BBX data, yesterday there was a structural differentiation in the Bitcoin treasury strategies of globally listed companies and large asset management entities, with the core dynamics as follows:Cardone Capital increases holdings on dips: Grant Cardone, CEO of the well-established American real estate investment and asset management giant Cardone Capital, officially posted on social platform X announcing that the company has increased its holdings by 130 BTC during the recent market correction. He emphasized that as a strategic asset reserve against inflation, the company will continue to utilize cash flow to allocate Bitcoin spot on dips.Sequans liquidates 80% of holdings to repay debts: Sequans Communications S.A. (NYSE: $SQNS) released an official announcement on Thursday, stating that it has successfully redeemed all debts related to its Bitcoin treasury by liquidating approximately 80% of its Bitcoin holdings, marking its official exit from the previous cryptocurrency asset treasury strategy. Currently, the company holds only 658 BTC and is completely debt-free, with future focus shifting back to its core business in IoT and cellular semiconductors.

According to the official announcement from Strategy, Strategy has completed the repurchase of $1.5 billion of 2029 convertible bonds at a discount of approximately 8%, generating an additional 0.7% BTC Yield, and the company's total debt has been reduced to $6.7 billion. From the beginning of 2026 to now, Strategy has achieved a 13.3% BTC Yield, with BTC gains reaching 89,378 coins, valued at approximately $6.8 billion. As of May 25, 2026, the company holds a total of 843,738 BTC, with a total purchase cost of approximately $63.87 billion, at an average price of about $75,700 per coin.

Fluid released a recap of the Resolv incident, stating that on March 22, Resolv was compromised due to an attack on its signature infrastructure, resulting in the malicious issuance of approximately $80 million in unsecured USR. Fluid faced a risk exposure of about $100 million, leading to approximately $21 million in bad debt. The final plan is as follows: Resolv will bear about $9.7 million, the Fluid governance treasury will bear $8.2 million, the team will bear $1.5 million, and the remaining USR within the protocol has been destroyed by Resolv at the contract level.Fluid stated that its smart contracts were not breached, all user funds are safe, and the protocol maintains full solvency. In addition, Fluid has upgraded its oracle and pricing risk control systems and will suspend buybacks, significantly reduce, or eliminate FLUID incentives.

According to official news, MARA's revenue in the first quarter was $174.6 million, a year-on-year decrease of 18%, with a net loss of $1.3 billion, mainly affected by the unrealized loss of 38,689 bitcoins on the balance sheet. MARA sold approximately $1.1 billion in bitcoins during the quarter to pay off debt and improve liquidity.The company stated that bitcoin mining remains the cornerstone of its operations, but it is shifting its business towards AI and digital infrastructure, and it does not expect to make large-scale ASIC miner purchases in the future. Currently, its hash rate has expanded to 72.2 EH/s, and it mined a total of 2,247 bitcoins during the quarter.

According to Forbes, Bitcoin bulls have added a macro narrative. Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates, warned that the $39 trillion debt crisis in the U.S. could lead to a long-term devaluation or even collapse of the dollar, while JPMorgan analysts believe that the market is witnessing a rotation from gold to Bitcoin in the currency devaluation trade.Dalio stated that the current annual spending in the U.S. is about $7 trillion, with revenues of only about $5 trillion, and the long-term fiscal deficit and debt expansion are nearing historically dangerous levels. He believes that during similar periods, fiat currencies tend to depreciate continuously, while gold benefits.Meanwhile, JPMorgan analyst Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou pointed out that as the conflict in Iran escalates, the inflow of funds into Bitcoin ETFs has continued to exceed that of gold ETFs, with some funds viewing Bitcoin as digital gold and a hedge against dollar devaluation.The report mentioned that since the outbreak of the U.S.-Iran conflict, the price of Bitcoin has risen by about 30%, although it is still below the historical high of $126,000 in 2025. Notable investors, including Stanley Druckenmiller and Elon Musk, have also expressed concerns about the long-term status of the dollar as a reserve currency.

The Mantle community has authorized the Mantle Treasury to provide a loan of up to 30,000 ETH to the Aave DAO through proposal MIP - 34, to address the bad debt impact caused by the rsETH cross-chain bridge security incident on Aave V3.According to the proposal, the loan term is up to 36 months, with an interest rate of LIDO + 1% annualized, and the borrower can repay early without penalty. In terms of risk control, Mantle will have priority security rights over the relevant collateral assets, and Aave will also provide additional collateral in the form of Aave tokens and protocol revenue worth no less than $11 million, and will delegate 130,000 Aave tokens to Mantle for governance participation.

Curve Finance officially announced that it is introducing a bad debt recovery mechanism based on on-chain market mechanisms, allowing CRV-affected users in certain lending markets with bad debts to choose different recovery strategies: directly selling their claims to exit, continuing to hold and wait for potential recovery, or providing liquidity to earn fees and incentives. The core of this mechanism is to establish a trading pool between crvUSD and the tokens of the affected claims, allowing bad debt claims to be priced in the market and creating liquidity, thereby providing users with an immediate exit channel instead of relying solely on the final liquidation results.It is reported that after the cryptocurrency market crash in October last year, some lending markets under Curve Finance experienced bad debt issues, with various liquidity pools being impacted by severe price fluctuations and liquidity contraction, leading to some deposit users facing withdrawal restrictions and asset losses.Curve stated that the recovery mechanism will not eliminate losses or guarantee recovery, but will gradually reflect risks and recovery expectations through a market-oriented approach. Additionally, if the governance layer distributes rewards through the veCRV incentive mechanism, it will help enhance liquidity depth, improve exit conditions, and strengthen market pricing efficiency.

The Curve team has published a proposal on the governance forum, addressing approximately $700,000 in bad debt generated by the CRV-long LlamaLend market, proposing a recovery mechanism based on the free market.This mechanism utilizes the option characteristics of the CRV-long treasury assets: when the price of CRV rises, the value of the treasury assets increases, and when the price falls, it does not further depreciate. The proposal suggests establishing a Curve stable pool with a low amplification coefficient (A=2) and a high redemption fee (1%), concentrating the liquidity of the treasury tokens around a repayment capability level of approximately 71%. Arbitrageurs can profit by purchasing treasury tokens through flash loans and conducting partial liquidations.Curve DAO has been invited to approve incentive measures for this pool, and the management fees collected will be retained in the treasury in the form of treasury tokens. If this mechanism is successful, it will serve as a reference solution for similar situations.

DefiLlama founder 0xngmi posted on platform X, stating that after verifying the data, if the funds seized by Arbitrum are prioritized for use in the AAVE market on Arbitrum, Aave will have no bad debt on Arbitrum under the condition that all rsETH share the depreciation.In a scenario where only the value of the mainnet rsETH is guaranteed (ignoring the value of the mapped version of rsETH on Layer 2), Aave will reduce bad debt on Arbitrum by 80%, from $88 million to $17 million.

Dragonfly Capital partner Haseeb tweeted that despite recent issues such as bad debts with AAVE, he remains optimistic about the long-term development of DeFi.Haseeb pointed out that the DeFi industry learns and progresses through repeated failures. Whether it was the collapse of Terra, the failed auction on Black Friday in 2020, or the stETH de-pegging incident in 2022, DeFi has repeatedly faced setbacks, but it becomes stronger after each failure. This is no different from TradFi—traditional finance has also experienced multiple failures, such as the 2008 banking crisis, the lending crisis, and the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s.The core of DeFi is risk aversion and resilience. Even with some bad debts like those of AAVE, the protocol has enough equity to cover the losses, and these failures are not fatal. He emphasized that DeFi will not disappear, and the intense discussions around how to improve DeFi are part of its ongoing progress. He is bullish on DeFi and on this community.

Aave officially stated that there may be two types of bad debts arising from the rsETH theft incident, depending on the different handling of rsETH. If the stolen losses are deducted from all circulating rsETH, it is expected to generate $123.7 million in bad debts, which is concentrated in the Ethereum mainnet in absolute terms, and is most severe in proportion on Mantle.If the value of the mainnet rsETH is guaranteed, and all losses are accounted for in the mapped version of rsETH on Layer 2, it is expected to generate $230.1 million in bad debts, all of which will be on Layer 2. Mantle will face a 71.45% WETH shortfall, and Arbitrum will face a 26.67% shortfall; the Ethereum mainnet will not be affected. Aave added that which situation ultimately occurs depends on decisions that Aave cannot control, mainly the accounting method for rsETH and the exchange rate update method of the LRT Oracle.

Well-known developer and Yuga Labs Vice President 0xQuit posted on X that the situation with Aave is dire and worsening, with multiple liquidity pools reaching 100% utilization, causing depositors to be "stuck," and the protocol facing further bad debt risks... If the price of ETH drops and Aave cannot effectively liquidate (which is indeed the case currently), it will ultimately lead to inefficient liquidations, resulting in more bad debt. If the problem cannot be resolved quickly, this situation may snowball.

DefiLlama founder 0xngmi has outlined three possible courses of action that KelpDAO may take following the rsETH hacking incident. Each of the three paths has significant flaws, and the final decision will test KelpDAO's credibility and Aave's risk tolerance.Path One: All users share the losses. KelpDAO will uniformly deduct 18.5% of the losses from all rsETH holders proportionally. Currently, there are about 666,000 rsETH collateralized across the Aave network, primarily highly leveraged on the mainnet and L2 (assuming all are at a 95% liquidation LTV). Once socialized losses occur, the equity of all positions on the mainnet will be completely wiped out, resulting in approximately $216 million in bad debt. The Umbrella protocol can cover $55 million in bad debt, and the Aave treasury will additionally bear $85 million, leaving a gap of about $76 million. KelpDAO may fill this gap by borrowing or selling Aave tokens (currently valued at about $51 million), but this would still put significant pressure on Aave, and all users would need to share the losses.Path Two: Directly rug the rsETH holders on L2. KelpDAO will only guarantee the mainnet rsETH and consider the rsETH on L2 as worthless. Currently, Aave L2 has about $359 million in rsETH collateral (calculated at current oracle prices), and if all are calculated at maximum leverage, it would result in approximately $341 million in bad debt, which cannot be covered by the Umbrella protocol at all. Aave can only use the treasury or borrowing to save part of the market, most likely abandoning chains like Arbitrum, Mantle, and Base, which have the largest losses, leading to a collapse of these L2 markets. This option has a minor impact on the Aave mainnet but would severely damage the credibility of the L2 ecosystem and could trigger a chain reaction.Path Three: Attempt to refund only the holders based on a snapshot taken before the hack, which is extremely difficult to execute. KelpDAO tries to fully refund only the rsETH holders based on the snapshot taken before the hack, while subsequent buyers or transfer holders would bear the losses themselves. However, since funds have significantly flowed after the attack, and the nature of DeFi protocols is liquidity pools, it is impossible to truly distinguish between different batches of depositors, making technical execution very challenging. The hacker borrowed $124 million on the Aave mainnet and $18 million on Arbitrum, and after deducting the coverage from the Umbrella protocol, there remains about $91 million in losses. Although this plan theoretically minimizes the spread of impact, its practical implementation is nearly impossible and could easily lead to legal and community disputes.

Michael Egorov, the founder of Curve Finance, posted on the X platform expressing hope that Aave can address the relevant issues. He pointed out that non-isolated lending has good scalability but carries higher risks, with the key being risk management, an area where Aave has historically performed well.He stated that the market can adopt a fully isolated model like that of Curve Finance or a hybrid model, although the latter is very complex, it is feasible. However, the market has yet to understand its advantages. Michael Egorov also mentioned that Aave v4's hub and spoke model might be a step towards a semi-isolated and safer direction.