Rumors of a 70% discount on AAVE shattered by the founder's firm stance: Cryptalist analysis
This week, the crypto community was stirred by a wave of rumors about an allegedly impending massive sale of AAVE tokens at a 70% discount to the Kraken exchange. The protocol's founder, Stani Kulechov, immediately and categorically denied these insinuations, calling them an incorrect interpretation of actual negotiations.
Let's break down what actually happened. The leaked materials mentioned the sale of approximately a 15% stake in Aave Labs — the division responsible for developing and maintaining the protocol. The company's total valuation was cited at around $385 million. However, Kulechov made it clear: "We will never sell AAVE at a 70% discount." The discussion is solely about a potential deal between Aave Labs and Kraken entities, not about selling the AAVE token itself from the DAO treasury.
Context of the Negotiations: From License to Lending
It's important to understand that the current negotiations are not a spontaneous idea but a logical continuation of a long-standing partnership. Recall that in 2025, the Aave DAO community almost unanimously (99.8% of votes) approved the transfer of the license for the Ink blockchain network to Kraken. Currently, Kraken is actively developing its own lending platform based on Aave's technology code and shares a portion of its operational revenue with the protocol.
The dialogue resumed amid recovery from a serious incident with KelpDAO in April, when hackers took out large loans backed by unbacked coins, creating problematic debt of up to $230 million. Although Aave's smart contracts withstood the pressure, the outflow of client funds was significant — total deposits fell by more than a third. Nevertheless, approximately $12 billion is still held in the protocol today, indicating the high resilience of the ecosystem.
Aavenomics 3.0 and the Future of the Token
Kulechov also reminded of the key principles of tokenomics. All revenue from the Aave protocol and the GHO stablecoin is directed to AAVE token holders. Moreover, version Aavenomics 3.0 has been announced, which will make the token buyback program fully automatic. A mechanism currently allows for the buyback of up to $50 million in AAVE per year at the community's discretion. The news of the upcoming automation has already triggered a price increase: AAVE rose nearly 7% in a day, settling around $87.
My analysis: The market reacts sharply to any hints of token value dilution, and Kulechov's denial removed a key Sword of Damocles risk. Against the backdrop of Kraken's plans for an IPO and its $550 million acquisition of the derivatives platform Bitnomial, a potential deepening of the partnership with Aave appears to be a strategically sound move. I expect the upcoming quarterly community call to bring full clarity and could serve as a powerful catalyst for further growth of AAVE.