Aave Founder Dismisses Reports Of Payward’s ‘70% Discount’ Stake Purchase

According to the batch, the reported proposal involved a $71 million purchase at a $385 million valuation. The implied valuation was described as a roughly 70% discount compared with AAVE’s fully diluted token valuation.

Kulechov reportedly rejected that framing, saying there was no way AAVE would be sold at a 70% discount. The batch also says he highlighted Aave’s protocol revenue, described as $134 million in annualized revenue directed to the Aave DAO.

The article should be careful not to collapse different parts of the Aave ecosystem into one entity. Aave Group, Aave Labs, Aave DAO and AAVE token holders are related, but they are not the same thing.

The episode also shows how sensitive major protocols are to strategic-investment rumours. Aave is one of DeFi’s most important lending platforms, so any report involving outside investment, token allocations or discounted valuations can quickly become a market narrative.

At the same time, strategic discussions are not unusual in a mature crypto sector. The batch says Aave Labs continues to discuss partnerships that could involve non-discounted AAVE token allocation sales. The key is that Kulechov rejected the discounted-sale framing.

Aave governance forums and official communications will be important follow-up sources if any partnership, token allocation or equity discussion becomes formal. Until then, the story should remain framed around reported claims and the founder’s response.

AAVE market reaction may also depend on whether holders see the denial as supportive of token value, or whether they focus on the possibility of future strategic distributions.

For now, the clean takeaway is that the founder has dismissed the reported 70% discount narrative while leaving room for strategic partner discussions under different terms.

This article treats the figures and claims as source-attributed because the repaired batch classifies the candidate as secondary-supported. That means market-data, on-chain, media, or dynamically served reporting sources are used for part of the story, rather than a single static corporate or regulatory filing.