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DeFi yield losses this spring traced to strategies, not just hacks
CoinDesk highlights that in April, DeFi total value locked fell by $13 billion and Aave lost $8.45 billion as yield models stopped performing under stress.
CoinDesk reports that many losses in DeFi this spring were not caused solely by smart contract hacks, but by yield strategies whose headline returns proved unsustainable when conditions tightened.
In April, the Kelp DAO bridge was drained for $292 million, and within 48 hours DeFi’s total value locked fell by $13 billion. CoinDesk says Aave accounted for $8.45 billion of that drop, framing these events as contagion in coverage but arguing that contagion does not explain why some positions were exposed while others were not.
CoinDesk’s analysis points to how DeFi presents yield on exchange interfaces, where users see an advertised percentage and treat it as a comparable product. The author argues that the number can be misleading because it masks what matters for durability under stress, including how capital is deployed, how risk is priced, redemption behavior, custody, regulatory perimeter, and the underlying assets.
The piece uses Kelp’s rsETH as an example of how a token marketed around yield could drift from its structure. CoinDesk says rsETH was sold as a yield-bearing liquid staking token but relied on 20 bridge dependencies and a single-verifier setup that required multiple human operators, with an oracle valuing it at par long enough for an attacker to borrow $190 million against fabr.