Aave founder Stani Kulechov defended the protocol's resilience after a $8.45 billion deposit run triggered by a $292 million exploit on KelpDAO's bridge in April 2026. At the Proof of Talk event, he claimed Aave's V3 infrastructure has proven resilient through market cycles, attributing vulnerabilities to third-party dependencies rather than core code flaws. However, independent data from LlamaRisk revealed $123.7 million in bad debt from the exploit, and the survival required a $300 million emergency bailout, including a 25,000 ETH pledge from the DAO and 5,000 ETH from Kulechov himself. The Bank Policy Institute highlighted inadequate insurance exposing DeFi to bank runs. Kulechov announced that the upcoming V4 upgrade will implement a modular 'hub-and-spoke' system to isolate risks and prevent contagion, enabling localized risk premiums and frozen collateral lines. The question remains whether institutional investors will tolerate such stress tests while awaiting V4.

Key facts

• $8.45 billion deposit run on Aave after $292M KelpDAO bridge exploit.
• Kulechov blamed third-party dependencies, not Aave's core code.
• LlamaRisk reported $123.7M bad debt from the exploit.
• Emergency bailout required 25,000 ETH from DAO and 5,000 ETH from Kulechov.
• V4 upgrade to introduce hub-and-spoke system for risk isolation.