Multicoin Capital Sends Entire AAVE Stack to Coinbase Prime After $40M Loss Deepens

Crypto NewsPublished:May 16, 2026, 2:10 PMMulticoin Capital Sends Entire AAVE Stack to Coinbase Prime After $40M Loss Deepens

Multicoin Capital has moved all 286,057 of its remaining aave tokens, worth approximately $26.68 million, into Coinbase Prime, the clearest signal yet that the fund is exiting a position sitting on over $40 million in losses.

WRITTEN BYShiraz JagatiSHAREPublished: May 16, 2026, 2:10 PM

Key Takeaways

• Multicoin Capital deposited all 286,057 AAVE tokens ($26.68M) into Coinbase Prime on May 16.
• The fund bought 338,005 AAVE at an average of $218 per token in late 2025, now down nearly 60% to $88.
• Coinbase Prime deposits by institutional funds historically tend to precede large structured OTC exits.

How the Position Was Built

Onchain data shows Multicoin Capital transferring its entire remaining Aave (AAVE) position of 286,057 tokens into Coinbase Prime. At AAVE’s current price of approximately $89, the batch is worth roughly $26 million. The move comes after what has become one of the more costly public trades of the current cycle for a major crypto fund.

As Bitcoin.com News previously reported, Multicoin Capital accumulated 338,005 AAVE tokens between October 13 and November 25, 2025, routing purchases through Galaxy Digital’s over-the-counter (OTC) desk. The fund spent approximately $73.7 million to build the position at an average price of $218 per token.

Aave (AAVE) is the governance and fee-sharing token of the Aave protocol, the largest decentralized finance ( DeFi) lending platform by total value locked. Multicoin’s thesis likely centered on Aave’s continued growth as DeFi activity scaled in a new bull cycle, a bet that has not paid off. Despite bitcoin surpassing $100,000 in 2026, DeFi governance tokens broadly underperformed the bitcoin-led market.

The Losses

With AAVE near $90, Multicoin’s original 338,005-token position is worth approximately $31 million against an outlay of $73.7 million, resulting in an unrealized loss of over $40 million (a 55% drawdown from entry).

Earlier in May, the fund moved portions of its AAVE to Galaxy Digital OTC wallets and BitGo, leading many to believe it was a staged exit. The May 16 deposit moves the full remaining balance to Coinbase Prime in a single transaction, bolstering the sentiment further.

The 286,057-token batch is significant relative to AAVE’s average daily trading volume, and any sale of that size would likely be broken up and routed through OTC channels to minimize slippage, exactly the transaction type Coinbase Prime is built to handle.

With Aave’s price being range-bound between $88 and $100 for several weeks, a transfer of this magnitude could represent a fundamental shift from accumulation to offloading on Multicoin’s behalf.

Tags in this storyCoinbaseGalaxy Digital