Aave Founder Denies 70% Discount AAVE Sale in Kraken Stake Report

AAVE News

Kraken is reportedly in talks to acquire a roughly 15% stake in Aave Group, the corporate entity tied to the decentralized lending protocol Aave (AAVE). According to circulating market reports, the exchange is weighing an investment of about 35,000 ETH to secure 250,000 AAVE tokens alongside the equity position, a structure valued near 71 million dollars and implying an Aave Group valuation of roughly 385 million dollars. If completed, the deal would mark the first transaction for Kraken’s Payward Asset Management arm and signal a push beyond pure exchange operations into Aave and strategic DeFi exposure. Neither party has issued an official confirmation.

Aave founder Stani Kulechov pushed back firmly on how the reported terms were framed. He stated there is no scenario in which AAVE would be sold at a 70% discount, calling the described deal structure inaccurate. Kulechov clarified that external parties have discussed acquiring the AAVE allocation held by Aave Labs as part of a possible long-term partnership, but said that differs sharply from the discounted sale described in the reports. The figures behind the report, he noted, trace to unnamed sources. As an altcoin at the center of the DeFi sector, AAVE drew heavy debate as the claims spread.

Kulechov used the moment to spotlight Aavenomics 3.0, an upcoming framework that would make AAVE buybacks automatic. The change extends a discretionary program already approved by governance to repurchase up to 50 million dollars of AAVE annually, shifting it toward a systematic, on-chain mechanism. He emphasized that 100% of revenue generated by the Aave protocol and its GHO stablecoin is directed to AAVE token holders under the protocol’s value-accrual design. The buyback push reflects a broader effort to tie protocol performance directly to token economics, a structural feature that distinguishes mature DeFi systems from speculative tokens.

On the revenue side, Kulechov said Aave is currently generating roughly 134 million dollars on an annualized basis. He stressed that all income from the protocol and its products accrues to the Aave DAO rather than to Aave Labs, which functions only as a service provider to the DAO and takes none of the protocol revenue. That distinction matters for the Kraken discussion: any token allocation under negotiation belongs to Aave Labs’ holdings, not to the DAO treasury or to discounted issuance of new supply. The clarification aimed to separate a potential strategic partnership from the narrative of a fire-sale token deal at depressed prices.

The talks also build on an existing relationship between the two firms. In 2025, the Aave DAO voted 99.8% in favor of licensing its code to Kraken’s Ink network, which now operates a white-label lending market that shares revenue with Aave. That governance decision established a working commercial link well before the current stake discussions surfaced. Observers view the renewed conversations as part of a wider trend of centralized exchanges deepening ties with established DeFi protocols, blending exchange liquidity with permissionless lending infrastructure ahead of Kraken’s planned public listing and its run of recent acquisitions.

The backdrop also includes Aave’s recovery from an April exploit involving KelpDAO, which left up to 230 million dollars in bad debt after an attacker borrowed against unbacked tokens. While Aave’s smart contracts were never breached, the fallout wiped out more than a third of its deposits, which now sit near 12 billion dollars. The protocol has been rebuilding deposit confidence since, and the Kraken discussions arrive as Aave works to restore its balance sheet. The episode underscores how counterparty and collateral risks, rather than core contract flaws, remain a persistent challenge across the lending sector.

As of the latest reading, AAVE trades near 82.74 dollars, up 3.66% over 24 hours. COINOTAG’s proprietary 42-indicator composite S/R scoring engine rates the 82.40 dollar resistance at 88/100, driven by the confluence of the Fibonacci 0.382 level, the prior-day high and the Ichimoku cloud top; the next barrier sits at 89.99 dollars (72/100, Fibo 0.500 and POC). Composite support holds at 80.35 dollars (61/100, SMA 50 and prior-day close) and 76.45 dollars (60/100). RSI at 60.92 and a bullish MACD favor buyers, while perp funding of 0.0068% and 101.5 million dollars in open interest show measured positioning despite an Extreme Fear reading of 12/100. A clean break above 82.40 dollars opens 90 dollars; a daily close below 76.45 dollars would invalidate the bullish thesis.