Kraken Owner Invests in Altcoin, Considers Further Purchases. You Should Recognize Him

Payward, the parent company of one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges, Kraken, has decided to purchase AAVE tokens, the native cryptocurrency of the decentralized lending protocol of the same name. The purchase was made by its affiliated fund, Digital Asset Special Investments I, LP, along with clients from the asset management division. The tokens were sourced from the secondary market. Unfortunately, the company did not disclose how many tokens were purchased or their cost. It only noted that this purchase may not be the end of their acquisitions.

Payward Invests in Aave, Considers Further Purchases

The announcement was made on Thursday and is notably sparse. It did not specify the number of tokens or the average price, nor did it mention the total value of the investment. Gurpreet Oberoi, Vice President of Payward for asset management and institutional clients, explained that his decision is based on a long-term belief in the market for loans made directly on the blockchain and in decentralized finance (DeFi). He added that clients are increasingly inquiring about such investments.

Stani Kulechov, founder and CEO of Aave Labs (the company that built the protocol), considers the collaboration with Payward a "strategic step" aimed at attracting new clients to Aave, both retail and institutional. For now, both parties are speaking in generalities about joint projects. However, unofficial sources suggest that purchasing on the market instead of directly from Aave signals a convergence of interests between the two companies.

The AAVE token gives holders voting rights on protocol matters and its treasury, which is managed by the decentralized autonomous organization Aave DAO. Since April, following the adoption of the "Aave Will Win" proposal, all protocol revenue has been directed to the DAO and token holders.

Approach Number Two

The company had previously considered Aave. On June 25, initial reports emerged about discussions indicating that Payward planned to acquire 15% of Aave Group's common stock at a valuation of $385 million. In exchange for 35,000 ETH (Ethereum), it was to receive 250,000 AAVE tokens. The total was worth about $71 million, and Kraken intended to invite other investors to the transaction. This was to be the first investment of the new arm, Payward Asset Management.

Kulechov responded on X in his style: "There’s no way they would sell AAVE at a 70% discount, lol." This was the difference between the valuation from the reports and the fully diluted market value of the token. He did admit, however, that Aave Labs has its own pool of AAVE and that several players have already discussed buying it back as part of long-term partnerships. However, the Thursday announcement about the company's shares did not mention this at all.

Aave Still Recovers Losses

The June discussions took place in the shadow of the biggest crisis in DeFi this year. On April 18, hackers linked to North Korea's Lazarus Group exploited a vulnerability in the cross-chain bridge of the KelpDAO project and issued unsecured rsETH tokens worth approximately $292 million. They collateralized them on Aave and borrowed real assets against them, leaving the protocol with bad debts estimated between $190 million and $230 million. Aave's smart contracts were not breached, but nonetheless, users panicked and withdrew over $8 billion from it.

Today, Aave boasts about $33 billion in net deposits and over $11 billion in active loans. The token itself looks worse. AAVE is priced at just under $129 according to aggregator data, down 17 percent since October 21 and roughly 80 percent below its record from 2021. It is declining along with the entire market, which experienced a significant drop on Thursday.

Kraken and Aave have known each other for some time. Since October 2025, Tydro, a lending market licensed by Aave V3, has been operating on Ink, a layer 2 network built by Kraken. In January, the exchange launched Kraken DeFi Earn based on it, a product where clients earn interest on the USDC stablecoin.

The purchase of AAVE is another transaction for Payward this year. In April, the company agreed to acquire the derivatives exchange Bitnomial for up to $550 million, and in July, it finalized the purchase of Reap, a company in the stablecoin payment sector, valued at up to $600 million according to the agreement. In May, reports emerged that Payward was raising capital at a valuation of $20 billion, preparing for a debut on a traditional exchange.

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