Aave founder says "no way" to 70% AAVE fire sale as Kraken stake talk inflames token 🔥

Aave founder Stani Kulechov has publicly rejected the framing of reports that crypto exchange Kraken is in talks to acquire a 15% stake in Aave Group at a $385 million valuation, insisting the protocol would not part with AAVE tokens at a deep discount. In a post on X, Kulechov wrote, "there is NO WAY we'd sell AAVE at a 70% discount lol," and confirmed only that outside parties had discussed buying an AAVE allocation held by Aave Labs. Kraken has not confirmed the terms, which trace to anonymous sources and would reportedly include a 35,000 ETH investment (~$55M), 250,000 AAVE tokens (~$20M) and a 15% common equity stake, a package worth roughly $71 million.

Kulechov emphasized that Aave Labs operates solely as a service provider to the Aave DAO and does not collect protocol revenue, stating "100% of Aave Protocol and GHO revenue goes to the $AAVE token." He cited annualized protocol revenue of approximately $134 million flowing to the Aave DAO, and teased Aavenomics 3.0, which would introduce an automated, non-discretionary AAVE buyback mechanism. That program would extend an existing framework already cleared to purchase up to $50 million of AAVE a year.

The exchange between Kulechov and the market comes against the backdrop of April's KelpDAO exploit, which left up to $230 million in bad debt after attackers borrowed against unbacked tokens. Although Aave's smart contracts were never breached, the episode erased more than a third of deposits, which now sit near $12 billion. Aave has an existing tie with Kraken after the Aave DAO voted 99.8% in 2025 to license its code to Kraken's Ink network, which runs a white-label lending market that shares revenue back to Aave. A Kraken stake would also fit the exchange parent Payward's acquisition run ahead of a planned public listing, following this year's agreement to buy derivatives venue Bitnomial for up to $550 million.

AAVE traded near $82, up almost 5% over 24 hours at one point during the debate, with intraday moves reaching as high as 13% and a bounce to $88 that marked a more than 50% recovery rally in June from a local bottom near $50. Over the same window, trading volume climbed above $546.6 million, market capitalization reached $1.44 billion, and Exchange Reserve USD rose 16.97% to $229.49 million, with the Relative Strength Index climbing to 69.22. The token remains down about 77% from a 2025 high of $386. Standard Chartered analyst Geoff Kendrick this week initiated coverage of AAVE with a price target implying nearly 50 times upside by the end of the decade, which would place the token around $4,000.

Aave plans a quarterly community call within weeks, where updates on Aavenomics 3.0 and any firming of the Kraken talks are expected to come into focus.