defi

Aave posted on platform X stating that the Aave service provider has released a governance proposal for Aave DAO, suggesting to allocate 25,000 ETH to participate in the ongoing DeFi United initiative. This ETH funding will be used to support the restoration of asset backing for rsETH, helping it to quickly regain its peg and promote the normalization of market conditions.This proposal aims to accelerate the risk management process for rsETH through financial support at the Aave DAO level, stabilizing the related DeFi market ecosystem.

The DeFi Education Fund, along with Aave Labs, Uniswap Labs, Paradigm, Andreessen Horowitz, and other organizations, has sent a letter to the U.S. SEC in response to the recent statement released by the trading and markets division regarding the registration of "non-custodial user interface" brokers for crypto asset securities.The signatories support the statement that the "non-custodial user interface," which only provides a technical entry point and allows users to manage their assets independently, should be excluded from broker registration. They also urge the SEC to establish clearer and more sustainable definitions of "broker" through formal rulemaking, to avoid incorrectly categorizing neutral software tool providers, validators, RPC/API, oracles, cloud services, and other infrastructure under broker regulations. This would provide long-term legal certainty for blockchain infrastructure innovation while ensuring investor protection.Previously, the SEC's trading and markets division indicated that some DeFi trading interfaces do not need to register as brokers, allowing for policy space for related applications. Supporters believe that the new regulations could cover infrastructure participants such as validators, APIs, and oracles. Currently, the U.S. crypto market legislation, the CLARITY Act, is stalled in the Senate.

The DeFi Education Fund, along with several other crypto advocacy organizations, has officially sent a joint letter to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), requesting the initiation of a formal DeFi rule-making process based on recent statements.Previously, the SEC's Division of Trading and Markets had clearly stated that certain software user interfaces used for trading cryptocurrencies do not need to register as broker-dealers, giving a green light to such activities. The joint letter calls on the SEC to solidify the above principles into an objective and clear framework through announcements or comment-based rule-making, clarifying which activities fall under the definition of "broker," while excluding infrastructure service providers such as validators, API and RPC providers, oracles, and cloud services. This would provide developers with long-term legal certainty and avoid reliance on temporary guidance. Under the leadership of current Chairman Paul Atkins, the SEC has taken a positive and open attitude towards digital asset innovation, contrasting sharply with the repressive stance of the previous administration, and the industry has also played an important role in the rule-making process.

Robin Markets tweeted that it has completed a $475,000 angel round of financing, led by Fabric VC, with joint leads from Animoca Brands, ATKA Incubator, John Lilic, and Stefan D. George, and participation from several institutions and angel investors including Hilbert Capital, Layer Zero, and Gnosis.Robin Markets has simultaneously opened its V1 staking product to the public. Robin Markets is a DeFi platform focused on Polymarket position yields, with its core product allowing users to earn yields on their positions in Polymarket.

The Web3 asset data platform RootData has outlined 30 business partners of Fireblocks, spanning multiple key areas such as DeFi protocols, payment settlement, compliance analysis, trading institutions, and multi-chain infrastructure:Settlement Layer: Represented by Circle, TripleA, and Lynq, responsible for stablecoin issuance and payment clearing.Liquidity and Trading Layer: Includes market makers and trading institutions such as Wintermute, Amber Group, GSR, and Wootton, responsible for fund distribution and market depth.On-chain Application Layer: Covers DeFi and application tools like Aave, Morpho, and MetaMask, which support the actual operation scenarios of funds.Compliance and Risk Control Layer: Service providers like Chainalysis, Elliptic, and Coincover form an important supplement to its regulatory adaptation capabilities.By 2025, Fireblocks is expected to handle over $200 billion in stablecoin transactions per month, a year-on-year increase of 300%. Fireblocks' positioning is evolving from a "custody and security service provider" to a central hub for on-chain fund flows and institutional asset circulation.Currently, Fireblocks supports over 150 public blockchain networks, and its partnership network has expanded to over 2,500 global institutional participants, including banks, asset management firms, exchanges, market makers, and fintech companies. Related compilation: Fireblocks Web3 Partner Network Compilation (Continuously Updated)Cryptocurrency projects actively showcasing their partner networks have become a key way to enhance transparency and market trust. It is reported that RootData welcomes Web3 project parties to claim information and continues to track and open more project business relationship disclosure channels. The platform has continuously released multiple issues of the cryptocurrency project ecosystem map, nominating Web3 ecosystem partners for upstream clients such as Visa, Mastercard, and Coinbase.If you wish to nominate your project in future ecosystem maps, please fill out the RootData 2026 Industry Ecosystem Mapping form to supplement your important clients and partners.

According to crypto analyst Yu Jin @EmberCN's monitoring, after Aave coordinated the establishment of "DeFi United" and obtained approximately 30,000 ETH in loans and 13,500 ETH in donations, there are signs of a slowdown in capital outflows from the platform.Data shows that Aave's current total deposit size is approximately $28.6 billion, a decrease of about $17.2 billion compared to before the rsETH event, a decline of about 37%.

Aave founder and CEO Stani Kulechov disclosed that he personally invested 5,000 ETH into DeFi United and stated that he is continuously working with partners to implement more funding commitments, aiming to resolve current issues as soon as possible and restore normal market conditions.Stani mentioned that Aave is his lifelong career, and the team is fully committed to seeking the most beneficial solutions for users.

Aave, in collaboration with multiple institutions, has launched the "DeFi United" rescue plan to address the approximately $292 million loss caused by the KelpDAO vulnerability attack and to prevent the spread of bad debts.The attack originated from a vulnerability in the LayerZero integration, where hackers forged uncollateralized rsETH and borrowed approximately $190 million in assets on Aave, leading to collateral distortion and triggering a bank run, causing the platform's TVL to evaporate by about $10 billion at one point.Currently, Lido Finance, EtherFi, and founder Stani Kulechov have proposed funding plans; Arbitrum has frozen some funds, but the remaining assets have been transferred through THORChain, making recovery difficult. The current focus is on joint funding to "patch the holes" and stabilize the DeFi lending system.

Lido has proposed to allocate up to 2,500 stETH (approximately $5.8 million) from the DAO to cover the asset gap of rsETH caused by the recent attack on Kelp DAO.Lido pointed out that the exploit based on LayerZero has led to insufficient rsETH reserves and triggered a chain reaction in the DeFi ecosystem, including rising interest rate pressures, a tightening lending market, and some leveraged strategies facing the risk of forced liquidation. The proposal emphasizes that these funds will only be used as part of a complete recovery plan, provided that the overall gap can be fully filled. Previously, the attack on Kelp DAO, amounting to approximately $292 million, had impacted Aave, causing bad debt issues, and its total locked value (TVL) once dropped by nearly $8 billion.

According to The Block, JPMorgan analysts stated that the frequent security incidents in DeFi and the stagnation of total locked value (TVL) in ETH terms continue to limit institutional interest in DeFi. The report mentioned that a recent cross-chain bridge attack related to Kelp DAO led to a loss of approximately $20 billion in DeFi TVL within a few days. The attackers minted about $292 million in unsecured rsETH and borrowed real ETH on Aave using it as collateral, resulting in approximately $230 million in bad debt. JPMorgan also pointed out that after security incidents, users tend to turn to Tether's USDT for safety.

According to Cointelegraph, the decentralized finance platform Flying Tulip, founded by Andre Cronje, has launched a withdrawal circuit breaker mechanism that can delay or queue withdrawals during abnormal capital outflows to limit potential losses and buy time for the team to investigate.The operation of this mechanism varies across different products: in the Perpetual PUT product, withdrawals may be rolled back, and users will need to try again later; in ftUSD, withdrawals will enter a queue and can be claimed after a delay. Flying Tulip stated that this mechanism employs a "fail-open" design, meaning that transactions can continue to be executed even if the safety mechanism fails.

According to CoinDesk, Cardano's core development company Input Output submitted nine funding proposals for the 2026 community treasury, totaling $46.8 million, a significant reduction of about 52% from last year's $97.5 million, marking the first step towards gradually reducing reliance on community funds.The nine proposals focus on two main directions: first, the consensus upgrade plan Leios, which is expected to increase Cardano's transaction processing capacity by 10 to 65 times, aiming to exceed 1,000 transactions per second, with testing planned for June and full launch by the end of the year; second, the Bitcoin DeFi system Pogun, which allows Bitcoin holders to lend and earn through Cardano without having to trust centralized institutions, with lending features expected to be publicly released in the second quarter.This voting involves about 1,000 elected representatives (DReps), with the voting deadline set for May 24. The results will test whether the Cardano community views Input Output as a regular funding applicant.Meanwhile, the new stablecoin USDCx in the Cardano ecosystem has reached a circulation of 14.6 million coins within weeks of its launch, and the total locked assets on the network have increased from $137.5 million to $142.7 million.

According to CoinDesk, monitoring by CertiK reveals that the Lazarus Group is conducting an attack operation named Mach-O Man targeting executives in the fintech and cryptocurrency industries. This operation utilizes ClickFix social engineering techniques, sending fake online meeting invitations to lure victims into pasting repair commands on their Mac terminals, thereby gaining access to company and financial systems.CertiK researcher Natalie Newson stated that the Lazarus Group has stolen over $500 million through attacks on Drift and KelpDAO in the past two weeks. Mach-O Man is a modular macOS malware toolkit developed by the Chollima division of the Lazarus Group, capable of automatically deleting itself after use to evade detection.Additionally, attackers have implemented this attack by hijacking DeFi project domain names and replacing them with fake Cloudflare messages.

According to PR Newswire, Valour, a subsidiary of DeFi Technologies, has secured approximately $11 million in institutional investment to purchase its Hedera (HBAR) related ETP products, with about $10 million corresponding to products listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and about $1 million corresponding to Valour Hedera SEK listed on the Swedish Spotlight Exchange.DeFi Technologies stated that these two transactions were facilitated by its Abu Dhabi seminar, reflecting the growing institutional demand for gaining exposure to Hedera through regulated exchange-traded products and supporting its asset management growth in the German market.