Whales Dump Over $6 Million in AAVE as KelpDAO Exploit Triggers 20% Aave Price Drop

Aave (AAVE) fell over 20% on April 19 after the KelpDAO rsETH exploit triggered a wave of whale selling and a record spike in ETH utilization across the lending protocol. The token dropped from roughly $115 to below $92 in hours as large holders rushed to exit positions. Aave’s ETH pool hit 100% utilization, effectively locking remaining depositors out of withdrawals. Whales Offload Millions in AAVE As of this writing, AAVE was trading for $91.89, down by 20.44% in the last 24 hours. With this, the altcoin has retested levels last seen on April 13. AAVE Price Performance. Source: TradingView On-chain data tracked by Lookonchain showed three major wallets selling AAVE within hours of the exploit becoming public. A wallet identified as smaugvision sold 20,015 AAVE for 2.06 million USDC at an average of $103 per token. A second whale at address 0xFC56 offloaded another 20,000 AAVE for 2.05 million USDC at the same average. A third wallet, 0xA2E4, sold 19,666 AAVE worth $1.95 million, converting the proceeds into 505.65 ETH and 10.11 WBTC at a lower $99 average. Due to the KelpDAO exploit creating bad debt on #Aave, $AAVE has dropped over 18% today. 🚨Whales are dumping $AAVE.• smaugvision sold 20,015 $AAVE for 2.06M $USDC at $103 avg.• Whale 0xFC56 sold 20,000 $AAVE for 2.05M $USDC at $103 avg.• Whale 0xA2E4 sold 19,666 $AAVE… pic.twitter.com/NUjWxIgdp0— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) April 19, 2026 Combined, the three wallets dumped nearly 60,000 AAVE tokens worth over $6 million. $5.4 Billion ETH Exodus Beyond the AAVE sell-off, suppliers began pulling ether (ETH) from Aave at scale. Over $5.4 billion in ETH reportedly left the protocol within hours. Tron founder Justin Sun withdrew 65,584 ETH worth approximately $154 million, adding to the liquidity drain. Justin Sun pulling 65k ETH is classic overreaction theater. He does this every DeFi scare then redeposits when rates spike. Utilization at 100% means yields are about to go parabolic for anyone who stays calm.— Fadi...