Kraken Acquires 15% Stake in Aave, Valued at $3.85 Billion, to Enter DeFi Asset Management Sector

BlockBeats News, June 26th, according to sources familiar with the matter, the parent company of the cryptocurrency exchange Kraken, Payward, is in talks with the decentralized lending protocol Aave. It is planning to exchange 35,000 ETH for 250,000 AAVE tokens and 15% of Aave Group's common stock, with a total valuation of approximately $3.85 billion and a transaction amount of about $71 million. Sources revealed that Kraken is also seeking to co-finance the transaction.

This investment is positioned as the first series of transactions in Payward's asset management business layout, marking Kraken's more proactive role in DeFi and other investment fields. Sources said that Payward has sufficient capital backing and that existing partners are interested in participating in such opportunities.

Aave is currently the largest decentralized lending protocol, but in April of this year, it was plunged into one of the most serious crises in DeFi history: hackers exploited a cross-chain bridge vulnerability in KelpDAO to mint about $292 million worth of uncollateralized rsETH and used it as collateral to borrow real assets on Aave, resulting in the protocol accumulating bad debt ranging from $190 million to $230 million. Although Aave's own smart contracts were never breached, the incident still triggered a withdrawal of over $8 billion, highlighting the systemic risks of interconnectedness in the DeFi ecosystem.

Kraken has been making frequent acquisition moves recently. Previously in April, it announced the acquisition of the cryptocurrency derivatives exchange Bitnomial for up to $550 million and reportedly raised a new round of financing at a $20 billion valuation, actively paving the way for a potential IPO.