$SPK, the native governance asset of the Spark protocol, is up 1.21% during Tuesday’s U.S. market hours to currently trade at $0.027. The buying pressure followed a capital rotation to leading protocol Sparklend as its major competitor AAVE got caught in the recent Kelp DAO rsETH exploit. The price jumps offer a major breakout from key resistance level, signalling an opportunity for potential recovery in near-term.
Sparklend Gains $1.4B as Kelp DAO Hack Shakes DeFi Markets
On April 18, 2026, Kelp DAO was exploited in a devastating $293 million attack, the biggest DeFi hack of the year. The attacker manipulated a vulnerability in the protocol’s LayerZero-powered bridge, which relied on a flawed single-verifier configuration. The hacker created 116,500 unbacked rsETH (18 percent of the total supply) by forging cross-chain messages and shared these fake coins with over 20 different networks.
The collapse instantly froze Aave. Though its core contracts were protected, the acceptance of rsETH as collateral by the protocol was a crucial flaw. The attacker leveraged the useless rsETH to borrow around $236 million of high-quality assets such as WETH, placing Aave in almost the same position with almost 196 million in bad debt. This sparked a massive liquidity crisis; panicked users withdrew over $5.4 billion, pushing ETH utilization to 100% and effectively trapping remaining funds in a “liquidity crunch.”
This volatility led to a great exodus of capital to protocols seen as more robust, a flight to quality. The main beneficiary of this shift was Sparklend. Whilst Aave had to freeze its markets to test its Umbrella safety module, Sparklend had registered an unprecedented net deposits and loan growth of $1.4 billion and $350 million, respectively, in a span of 48 hours. According to the data, the inflows of April 18th and 20th are by far the largest in all of 2026.
The success of Sparklend was based on its proactive risk management. Spark already halted the rsETH and other low-liquidity assets in January 2026, and had no exposure to the forged tokens. This enabled it to keep on operating fully as competitors were hampered by contagion. The enormous rush of USDS and DAI testifies to the fact that the investors perceived Sparklend as a safe haven, effectively seizing a large portion of liquidity leaving the market in the panic.
Spark Price Gives a Decisive Breakout From 4-Months Consolidation
Following a significant correction in 2025, the Spark price shifted its trajectory to sideways above the $0.019 support. For over four months, the $SPK price remains in a confined range between the horizontal level of $0.026 and $0.018.
This consolidation acted as an accumulation zone for $SPK buyers, evidenced by a rising slope in momentum indicator RSI. The building bullish momentum bolstered price to rebound from the aforementioned despite the geopolitical tension in the middle east.
Furthermore, the Kelp DAO rsETH exploit acted as triggered for capital rotation to Spark price, giving a decisive breakout from the range resistance on April 20th. If the breakout holds, the Spark price could drive a 25% rally to $0.034, followed by a leap to $0.046.
