Kraken plans to acquire 15% stake in Aave DeFi lending protocol

Kraken, through its parent Payward, is in advanced talks to purchase a 15% equity stake in Aave Group, the entity behind the leading Ethereum‑based decentralized lending protocol. The proposed deal would involve roughly 35,000 ETH (about $71 million) and 250,000 AAVE tokens, valuing Aave at approximately $385 million.

Aave founder Stani Kulechov publicly disputed media reports that the transaction would be a 70 % discount sale. He emphasized that no such discount exists and clarified that Aave Labs holds a token allocation that could be sold under long‑term partnership terms, but not at the alleged price. Kulechov also highlighted that the protocol generates about $134 million in annual revenue, all of which is directed to the Aave DAO and token holders.

If completed, the investment would be the first under Kraken’s new Payward Asset Management initiative, giving the exchange significant governance influence over Aave’s risk parameters, collateral choices and fee structures. The deal follows earlier collaboration – Kraken’s Ink layer‑2 launched a white‑label version of Aave – and comes as Aave recovers from a major April exploit that temporarily drove deposits down by half.