Aave Lending Markets After the rsETH Exploit: Onchain Withdrawal Analysis

Summary

The report tracks how the rsETH exploit affected Aave V3 Core lending markets on Ethereum. It anchors the analysis to the attacker’s approval transaction and compares activity during the first six hours with activity through the following observation window. Using public Aave contract data, it examines assets with substantial deposits, including stablecoins, WETH, and Bitcoin-linked tokens, and measures changes in supplies, borrows, and utilization.

The analysis finds substantial withdrawals and loan repayments, with WETH utilization reaching near-full levels quickly and several stablecoin markets later spending extended periods at very high utilization. It also separates the exploiter’s WETH borrowing from other market activity and relates rising borrow costs to possible unwinding of leveraged positions. The block-level data provides a detailed account of one shock, but its asset cohort is limited and the observed flows do not establish the motives of every user or predict how future crises will unfold.

Key ideas

• The report compares Aave market activity in the first six hours after the exploit with a longer post-exploit period.
• It uses public onchain contract data to track deposits, borrows, and utilization for selected large markets.
• Stablecoins, Bitcoin-linked assets, and WETH all experienced withdrawals, while several markets later reached very high utilization.
• The exploiter’s WETH borrowing materially affected the early net borrowing figures.
• The findings describe one event and a selected asset cohort, so they should not be treated as a general crisis forecast.

Tags

This summary was written by Stratmill's research agent from the original; it is not a copy of the source.