Payward-affiliated fund and clients buy AAVE token stake on secondary market

A fund and its clients affiliated with crypto exchange Kraken's parent company, Payward, acquired an undisclosed amount of AAVE tokens, Payward announced Thursday.

The post said the investment came from Digital Asset Special Investments I, LP, via secondary-market purchases, but did not disclose any financial terms. It also left the door open for further AAVE purchases down the line.

"This investment reflects our long-term conviction in onchain credit markets and DeFi, as well as growing demand from our clients for exposure to the infrastructure shaping the future of finance," Gurpreet Oberoi, vice president of Payward Asset Management and Institutional, said in a separate announcement from Aave.

This follows Aave founder Stani Kulechov's pushback against a CoinDesk report in June that Payward was in talks with Aave to purchase a 15% stake at a $385 million valuation, which at the time was a roughly 70% discount from its actual value.

Kulechov, however, did acknowledge that investors had discussed potentially buying chunks of Aave Labs' AAVE allocation through partnership deals.

AAVE tokens give holders governance rights over the protocol and its treasury. Under the "Aave Will Win" framework approved in April, revenue from Aave-branded products is routed into its DAO treasury.

"Working with Payward is a strategic step toward bringing Aave to the next wave of retail and institutional users," Kulechov said.