Aave founder Stani Kulechov flatly rejected a Thursday CoinDesk report claiming Payward (Kraken's parent) was negotiating a 15% stake in the lending protocol for roughly 35,000 ETH, which would value Aave at $385 million. That price tag implied a 70% discount to AAVE's fully diluted token valuation at the time.
The report, sourced from three anonymous sources, described a structure where Kraken would receive 250,000 AAVE tokens plus equity in Aave Group, with plans to syndicate the deal. Kulechov's response on X was terse: "There is NO WAY we'd sell AAVE at a 70% discount lol."
His pushback reveals why the deal as reported doesn't fit Aave's actual ownership model. Under the "Aave Will Win" proposal that passed in April, all protocol revenue, GHO revenue, and product revenue from Aave App, Aave Pro, and Swaps flow entirely to the AAVE token and the DAO. Aave Labs, the operating entity, receives none of this cash flow and functions as a service provider to token holders. Crucially, all intellectual property and the Aave brand belong to AAVE holders, not the company itself.
This structure means a 15% equity stake in Aave Labs buys you none of the revenue stream or IP control that typically comes with corporate ownership. Kulechov noted that Aave Labs holds its own AAVE token allocation and has fielded multiple inquiries about partnerships, but any meaningful stake in the protocol's economics would have to run through token governance, not a private deal with the operating entity.
The timing of the rumor followed Aave's exposure during the April KelpDAO bridge exploit, when attackers used $292 million of unbacked rsETH as collateral to drain real assets from the protocol. Though Aave itself was not compromised, the incident triggered a sharp TVL collapse before a coordinated recovery effort mobilized over $300 million in commitments. Payward has been on an acquisition spree, having closed the purchase of derivatives exchange Bitnomial in May for an estimated $550 million and previously partnered with Aave through its Ink L2 lending product Tydro.
Looking forward, Kulechov teased Aavenomics 3.0, a forthcoming change introducing an automated, non-discretionary AAVE buyback mechanism. Aave already operates a discretionary buyback program capped at $50 million per year, cleared by DAO governance. An automated mechanism would remove human decision-making from the repurchase process, though Kulechov did not specify timing or mechanics.