DeFi Saver Newsletter: April 2026

Welcome again to the latest DFS Newsletter, where we go over everything new that's happened across the ecosystem, as well as all the latest DFS updates for the previous month!

 For this month, we’ll cover:

1. Ecosystem news: DeFi exploit number for Q1 thus far;
2. DFS news and updates: Aave v4 launch and Lazy Summer vault integration;
3. A look back at EthCC in Cannes;
4. DeFi Saver Stats for March;

Q1: Exploits, security, and the launch of Aave v4 

Over the first quarter of 2026, hackers pulled approximately $168.6 million across 34 protocols, a stark contrast to the $1.58 billion recorded during the same period in 2025, a figure heavily skewed by a single $1.4 billion breach.

Several events stood out during the quarter, including a $40 million private key compromise at Step Finance, a $26.4 million exploit targeting Truebit via smart contract manipulation, and a later attack on Resolv Labs tied to another private-key breach. 

At the same time, Nick Percoco (the chief security officer at Kraken) highlights that cybercrime in crypto is closely linked to market dynamics and innovation (big launches where more liquidity is available).

 “Bull markets, major product launches, and fast-moving growth phases all create more attractive conditions for attackers because more value is at stake and new infrastructure can introduce risk,” he explained.

One incident especially stood out in late March, when a Solana perpetual DEX was hit by a major private key exploit that wiped away more than $200 million, with some estimates placing total loss as high as $285 million.

In the lead-up to the exploit, the attacker behind the breach used social engineering to trick council members into signing deceptive txs. These approvals sat unused for days, then remained valid even after a council rotation, where the attacker compromised new signers again. On April 1, a routine test triggered the attack: pre-signed transactions were executed, granting full admin control. 

Now, despite ongoing setbacks and security concerns, there are still positive developments across the ecosystem: most notably, the launch of Aave V4.

DeFi Saver news & updates

The past month has been uniquely challenging, as the whole team was heads-down trying to ensure that the new Aave V4 UI is intuitive, as comprehensive as possible, and supported from day one. And we think we’ve succeeded in doing just that, though you can certainly look forward to many V4 updates in the near future.

So, without further ado, let’s go over the new release and everything else that’s new on DeFi Saver.

Aave v4 is live on DeFi Saver

As of March 30, Aave V4 is officially live on Ethereum Mainnet.

Building on a long-standing partnership that dates back to Aave V1, we have now extended our signature advanced position management toolkit to V4, with over $1B in Aave V3 positions already managed through the app.

On DeFi Saver, users can now access 1-tx leverage tools like Boost and Repay, automated strategies such as Stop Loss and Take Profit, and advanced actions like position flipping, collateral/debt switching, and lending directly into V4 markets. 

Our UI itself allows users to compare rates across multiple Markets and Hubs in one place, prompting quicker execution. 

And this is just the start; many cool features are in the works, such as a dedicated V3-to-V4 migration tool (currently possible only with Loan Shifter), so stay tuned!

Lazy Summer vaults integration on DFS

Lazy Summer vaults are now live in DeFi Saver, marking the next step in our partnership with Summer.fi.

Users can now access and deposit into Lazy Vaults directly through the DFS app, available across Ethereum, Arbitrum, and Base.

All Lazy Vaults are also integrated into the Smart Savings dashboard, making yield strategies easier to manage in one place. 

In case you missed it, this follows the Summer.fi Pro transition to DeFi Saver, and we’d like to remind you that the previous automations are no longer active and must be recreated in DFS to keep positions secure.

Defi Saver goes to Cannes

Our team went to Cannes yet again, from March 30 until 2 April, for another edition of EthCC. We’re especially proud of this year's  DFS merch, and from what we hear, you guys found it cool as well. 

We asked our Madam de Marketing, Natasha, for her thoughts on this year's event: 

“The highlight for us was Aave V4 launching on the very first day of the conference. We'd shipped support for it the same day, so it was great to be able to show that off in person and hear what people thought about it directly,’’ she explained.

She especially emphasised that “agentic finance kept coming up in conversations throughout the week. It's clearly something a lot of teams are actively working on, but trust in agents to independently execute transactions is still pretty low across the board. That feels like a natural space for DeFi Saver to step into, given how long we've been building in this space and the track record our automations have built up over the years.”

On April 1, we also hosted a special side event together with the LI.FI team, titled “The DeFi Rendezvous: Where Lending Meets Perpetuals.” The gathering took place at the LI.FI  Villa, just a short walk from the main event venue, brought together builders, users, and partners across the DeFi ecosystem. 

A big thank you to everyone who stopped by and contributed to the discussions around the evolving relationship between perpetuals and lending protocols. 

You can look forward to many exciting updates on DFS related to perps and trading, as well as quick hedging options between different protocols.

DeFi Saver stats

At the end of March, DeFi Saver Automation managed around $324M of collateralized assets across 936 user positions. 

The total number of transactions for March is around 10.099, with the number of total unique addresses (presumably the number of users) executing them being 1.591.

In terms of the most common collateral/debt asset pairings, ETH/USDC remains the most popular, followed by USDC/WBTC, ETH/DAI, USDC/ETH, and WBTC/USDC.

And with this, we've reached the end of this month's Newsletter. We hope you found it useful, and please remember that you can always hit up our support guys via the DFS Discord for any specific DFS-related questions you might have.

Until the next post, stay safe out there! 🛟

Stay connected:

🌍: DeFiSaver.com

💬: Official Discord

📢: Official Twitter/X