rsETH Exploit Drains $292M; USDT Lending Rates Spike to 13-20% as Aave WETH Hits 100% Utilization
5,475 pools | Median APY 1.39% | Avg 3.1%
$36.1B
LOW-RISK TVL
2.2%
LOW-RISK AVG APY
4.6%
MED-RISK AVG APY
TVL BY RISK TIER
Low: $36.1B (172 pools, 2.2%)Med: $136.2B (3090 pools, 4.6%)High: $1.2B (2213 pools, 603.1%)
WEEK OVER WEEK
Total TVL
$173.5B+$98.0B
prev: $75.5B
Median APY
1.39%-0.13pp
prev: 1.52%
Pool Count
5,475+110
prev: 5,365
Low-Risk APY
2.16%+0.00pp
prev: 2.16%
7 THINGS TO KNOW
Aave V3 Carries ~$100M-$200M Bad-Debt Risk From rsETH Bridge Exploit
116,500 rsETH minted unbacked (~$292M). $100M-$200M WETH borrowed against stolen collateral on Aave V3. aEthWETH contract 0x4d5f47fa6a74757f35c14fd3a6ef8e3c9bc514e8 trading 0.95-0.98. Kelp multisig freeze at ~15:38 UTC April 18. rsETH markets frozen on Aave V3, Aave V4, SparkLend, and Fluid.
USDT/USDC Lending Rates Spike to 11-20% Across Morpho, Fluid, and Sky
Fluid USDT ETH 13.54% (+8.14% 7d, $115M). Morpho STEAKUSDT 13.43% (+9.33% 7d, $140M). Morpho SkyMoney USDT 11.39% (+5.89% 7d, $117M). Morpho BBQUSDC 15.19% (+8.28% 7d, $51M). Jupiter Lend USDC SOL 11.24% (+7.59% 7d, $365M). Morpho SENPYUSDMAIN PYUSD 11.28% (+6.21% 7d, $152M).
Median APY Compresses from 1.52% to 1.39% Week-Over-Week
Median APY 1.52% on 2026-04-11, 1.39% on 2026-04-18. Total pools rose from 5365 to 5475 over the same window.
Low-Risk Tier Loses 11 Pools and $4.7B in Tracked TVL
Low-risk pools 183 -> 172 (-6.0%). Low-risk TVL $40.77B -> $36.10B (-11.5%). Low-risk APY 2.16% -> 2.16% flat.
Morpho V1 Usual SENPYUSDMAIN on Ethereum Rises to 5.81% PYUSD
APY 5.07% -> 5.81% (+14.6%). TVL $359M. Risk score 38. Same PYUSD vault family as last week's alert.
Spark Savings USDT Vault Debuts at 4.58% on $859M TVL
New pool. APY 4.58%. TVL $858.9M. Risk score 31. Launched in the past week.
Falcon Finance SUSDF Holds 7.48% at Risk Score 29 on $88M TVL
APY 7.48%, risk score 29, TVL $88.0M, stablecoin SUSD. Sits at the edge of the low-risk boundary.
CHAIN BREAKDOWN
Berachain appears as the largest chain at $101B TVL due to Bex AMM onboarding this week, not real capital flow. Ethereum holds genuine dominance for yield-bearing pools at $46.6B and 9.85% TVL-weighted avg APY (the avg is inflated by outlier Uniswap V4 tokens). Base remains the most meaningful L2 at $6.9B across 575 pools.
POOLS
AVG APY
TVL
Berachain
38
0.0%
$101.1B
Ethereum
2275
9.8%
$46.6B
Base
575
1.8%
$6.9B
Gnosis
26
0.1%
$3.1B
Arbitrum
417
5.8%
$2.5B
Solana
436
2.8%
$2.3B
STABLECOIN YIELDS (AVG APY)
Avg APY can be skewed by outliers. TVL on right.
TOP RISK-ADJUSTED PICKS
172 pools | $36.1B TVL | 2.2% avg APY
Ethena Usde SUSDE
Ethereum | Lowest risk score with $3.5B TVL. APY has ticked up across the month. Best conservative anchor.
3.7%
Avantis USDC
Base | 11.43% at risk score 17 is the widest yield-to-risk gap in the dataset. Yield comes from Avantis perp LP funding.
11.4%
Maple USDC
Ethereum | Highest APY among $3B+ low-risk pools. Institutional private-credit backing with audit coverage.
4.4%
Usd Ai SUSDAI
Arbitrum | 7%+ yield at risk score 25 on $259M TVL. Consistent rate for multiple weeks.
7.2%
Sky Lending SUSDS
Ethereum | The $6.3B benchmark for native DAI/USDS yield. Flat at 3.75% for six consecutive weeks, giving allocators a predictable rate with MakerDAO lineage and risk score 20.
3.8%
THIS WEEK IN STABLECOINS
CoinDesk
Kelp DAO rsETH Drained $292M via LayerZero Bridge Exploit; Aave Left With Bad DebtOn April 18 an attacker exploited a compromised LayerZero DVN configuration (single LayerZero Labs validator) and minted 116,500 unbacked rsETH across the cross-chain bridge, draining roughly $292M. The attacker supplied rsETH as collateral on Aave V3 and borrowed WETH, pushing WETH utilization to 100% and temporarily blocking ETH withdrawals. Aave, SparkLend, and Fluid froze rsETH markets within hours.
Aave V3 now carries an estimated $100M-$200M of potential bad debt tied to unbacked rsETH collateral. The DAO's newly approved revenue stream from 'Aave Will Win' may be tapped to backstop any socialized loss. Allocators in Aave V3 WETH on Ethereum cannot currently withdraw on-chain at pace; aEthWETH (0x4d5f47fa6a74757f35c14fd3a6ef8e3c9bc514e8) trades at a discount on Uniswap. Stablecoin suppliers on Aave V3 are unaffected in principle but sit behind any safety-module socialization.
Unchained Crypto
Aave DAO Passes 'Aave Will Win' Redirecting 100% of Product Revenue to HoldersAave's governance approved the 'Aave Will Win' proposal with 74.89% support on April 13, restructuring token economics so that 100% of revenue from all Aave-branded products flows to the DAO. The vote included a $25M grant to Aave Labs.
Aave still anchors the low-risk lending tier at $5.75B TVL across 87 pools. The revenue redirect plausibly contributed to the Aave V3 USDT Ethereum APY surge from 2.28% to 3.74%, and now creates a potential bad-debt backstop if rsETH losses are socialized.
The Block
CLARITY Act Stablecoin Yield Language Pushed Back; Ban on Idle Balances StaysSenate negotiators stalled the CLARITY Act's stablecoin yield provisions to a later legislative window, but the existing prohibition on yield from idle issuer balances remains intact.
US allocators still cannot receive yield directly from stablecoin issuers, which keeps demand routed into Aave, Maple, Morpho, and tokenized-treasury wrappers as the only compliant yield venues.
OUTLOOK
The defining signal this week is not yield compression, it is external collateral risk bleeding into stablecoin lending. The Kelp DAO rsETH bridge exploit for $292M on April 18 left Aave V3 with an estimated $100M-$200M of bad-debt exposure after the attacker borrowed WETH against unbacked rsETH. WETH remains pinned at 100% utilization on Ethereum, and the borrower rotation has repriced the rest of the stablecoin lending stack: USDT flagship venues now pay 11-20%, USDC venues 7-15%. This is a liquidity repricing, not a structural yield improvement; expect retracement as WETH utilization on Aave normalizes and Kelp's resolution path clarifies. The three questions that shape next week: (1) can Kelp recover or socialize the loss without cascading to Aave's safety module, (2) does the LayerZero OFT contagion extend to other bridged assets that inherited the same 1-of-1 DVN default, and (3) how fast do elevated stablecoin rates retrace once Aave WETH utilization drops below 100%. On the medium-risk side, Morpho-curated vaults and Fluid are the clear net winners of the capital rotation.
HIGHAave rsETH Bad-Debt Resolution Path
HIGHStablecoin Rate Retrace as WETH Utilization Normalizes
MEDIUMLayerZero OFT Contagion to Other Bridged Assets
HIGHAave V3 WETH Ethereum Utilization and Withdrawal Queue
MEDIUMLow-Risk Pool Count Contraction