三折買Aave？被誤讀的傳言，藏著Kraken的上市野心

Early this morning, a report set the DeFi community abuzz.

CoinDesk, citing three sources familiar with the matter, reported that crypto exchange Kraken is in talks to acquire a stake in Aave. The proposed structure involves Kraken contributing 35,000 ETH in exchange for 250,000 AAVE tokens, plus a 15% equity stake in Aave Group, valuing the entire deal at approximately $71 million, corresponding to a valuation of $385 million. The report also noted this is the first transaction under the Payward Asset Management series, with Kraken planning to syndicate it externally and take a more active role in DeFi and other investment opportunities going forward.

The most striking aspect of this deal is the valuation. At $385 million, it's nearly 70% lower than AAVE token's market cap of roughly $1.24 billion. Aave has consistently emphasized that all protocol value flows to the token. So, what exactly does Kraken get by spending real money on 15% equity? If all value is supposed to accrue to the AAVE token, why would Kraken want a board seat?

A few hours later, Aave founder Stani Kulechov stepped in to clarify.

He refuted the report's framework point by point. Aave Labs would never sell AAVE at a 70% discount. What was being discussed was a portion of AAVE held by Labs itself, negotiated with "multiple market participants through deeper, long-term partnerships," and unrelated to the protocol level. He emphasized that all revenue from the Aave protocol and the GHO stablecoin flows to the AAVE token – a rule established by the "Aave Will Win" proposal – including revenue from products like Aave App, Aave Pro, and Swaps. Aave Labs is merely a service provider for the DAO and receives no share of protocol revenue.

Stani also revealed that the team is designing Aavenomics 3.0, which will introduce an automated, non-discretionary buyback mechanism.

According to him, the offering wasn't discounted AAVE; CoinDesk's comparison of the total equity deal price against the market cap of a single token was inherently misleading.

If Stani's clarification is accurate, CoinDesk's report was indeed misleading.

However, Stani didn't address the retail investors' original question. If all protocol value truly resides in the token, what exactly does Kraken get by buying 15% of Aave Group? He sidestepped this point. The value attribution between equity and tokens remains a murky issue.

The details of the deal remain up in the air, with Kraken not commenting directly on the report.

But their motivation is clear. In its report, CoinDesk mentioned that Kraken's parent company, Payward, framed this transaction as "the opening move in a series of asset management actions." A company preparing for an IPO is making a foray into DeFi giants its signature move.

Over the past year and a half, Kraken has made new moves almost every quarter, advancing on three fronts simultaneously.

First, building its own infrastructure.

Kraken incubated its own L2, "Ink," attempting to replicate the path taken by Binance and Coinbase by guiding CEX users on-chain for lending and trading. The most active protocol on Ink is the Perp DEX "Nado," offering unified margin accounts for spot, margin, and perpetuals, attracting real users through points programs and airdrop expectations.

Second, strategic acquisitions.

Over the past 18 months, Kraken's acquisition pace has been intense: acquiring derivatives exchange Bitnomial for $550 million, along with its full set of CFTC licenses for brokerage, clearing, and exchange; buying stablecoin payment company Reap for $600 million to fill gaps in card issuance and cross-border settlement; purchasing Backed Finance, the entity behind the tokenized stock protocol xStock s, late last year; and acquiring token management platform Magna this February.

Third, regulatory identity.

In March, Kraken became the first digital asset bank in the US to obtain a Federal Reserve master account, enabling it to settle US dollars directly on Fedwire without needing intermediary banks. That same month, Nasdaq announced a partnership with Kraken to build a stock tokenization framework, preserving issuer control and shareholder voting/dividend rights. A crypto exchange is adopting the identity of traditional finance.

Kraken is transforming from a crypto exchange into a full-stack financial infrastructure company.

An IPO is the primary driver behind all these strategic moves. Last November, Payward raised $800 million at a $20 billion valuation, increasing by 30% within two months. The investor list includes Citadel Securities, Jane Street, and Apollo Global Management.

Viewed through this lens, Kraken's desire to invest in Aave becomes understandable – it extends its "handle any financial business" narrative into DeFi itself. Acquiring a partial stake in a leading protocol is much faster than building a lending protocol from scratch and fits more neatly into the growth narrative for its IPO prospectus.

However, Kraken's IPO path hasn't been smooth.

On March 18 of this year, Kraken's IPO hit the pause button. The core reason was the bleak market conditions, with Bitcoin plunging from $126,000 in October last year to around $65,000, wiping out over a trillion dollars in market value. BitGo, which went public just ahead of Kraken and was the only digital asset company to list in 2026, saw its stock price drop 44% post-IPO – a cautionary tale visible to all.

Market tastes are also changing – at least 11 crypto IPOs raised a total of $14.6 billion in 2025, but 2026 has started much colder. Advisors say investors are now scrutinizing financial infrastructure targets much more carefully, re-evaluating factors like regulatory maturity, recurring revenue, and resilience. Just a month before the IPO pause, Kraken replaced its CFO of only 16 months, handing the role to a newly promoted Deputy CFO. Swapping its finance chief at the last minute is a red flag for a company undergoing due diligence.

But a pause doesn't mean an exit.

In May, reports surfaced that Payward was raising a new round of funding at a $20 billion valuation. Co-CEO Arjun Sethi has also stated multiple times in recent months that the company's goal is to complete its IPO by the end of 2026. It's foreseeable that over the next six months or so, Kraken might make moves more frequently to bolster its valuation in the prospectus.

The rumored investment in Aave is just the latest step in this process. Whether this deal closes or not, and what that 15% equity stake actually buys, will likely only be definitively answered in writing when the S-1 filing becomes public.