Aave Founder Responds to Payward Acquisition Rumors: Will Not Sell AAVE at a 70% Discount

Odaily reported that Aave founder Stani Kulechov has responded to reports suggesting Kraken's parent company Payward is interested in acquiring a 15% stake in the Aave protocol, stating that AAVE is "not going to be sold at a 70% discount."

Prior reports from CoinDesk indicated that Payward was in talks to acquire a 15% stake in Aave at a valuation of $385 million. If calculated at this valuation, it would represent only approximately 30% of AAVE's fully diluted valuation, significantly below the market valuation.

In a post on X, Kulechov stated that the relevant reports were not entirely accurate. He did not completely deny the possibility of Aave Labs selling a portion of its held AAVE tokens, but noted that Aave Labs does have a certain allocation of AAVE, and that multiple market participants have discussed purchasing either directly or indirectly, or engaging in deeper collaboration centered around long-term partnerships.

Aave is the largest decentralized lending protocol on the Ethereum ecosystem. Kulechov stated that Aave currently generates an annualized revenue of approximately $134 million, with the relevant revenue flowing to the Aave DAO. He has also previously proposed a governance plan to redirect revenue from Aave Labs, the protocol, and its products to the Aave DAO and token holders.

These rumors emerge at a time when Aave is experiencing certain pressures. Following the Kelp DAO incident in April, Aave's TVL saw a significant decline. Although Aave itself was not directly attacked, the KelpDAO cross-chain bridge attacker utilized Aave to convert the stolen rsETH into other assets.