News linked to both this project and an event.
Odaily, Mitchell Amador, CEO of bug bounty platform Immunefi, stated at the WAIB Summit that new AI models such as Claude Opus 4.8 and ChatGPT 5.5 are shifting the balance of cybersecurity offense and defense in favor of attackers, leading to a resurgence in crypto hacks in 2026. Data from DefiLlama shows that in April 2026, illicit actors stole over $634 million from crypto platforms, the highest monthly total since the Bybit hack in February 2025 drove losses of approximately $1.4 billion.Amador stated that the crypto industry is in a critical survival period for the next three to four years until security teams leverage similar AI models to build codebases that attackers cannot breach; if the industry adopts more crowd-sourced security solutions, this timeline could be shortened to within two years. The latest Claude Mythos model, Fable 5, from AI company Anthropic, previously raised concerns about accelerating the ability to exploit crypto vulnerabilities.Anthropic stated that Fable 5 has safeguards in place that will redirect topics related to cybersecurity and similar fields to Claude Opus 4.8. On April 19, an attacker transferred approximately 116,500 restaked Ethereum (rsETH) from Kelp DAO's LayerZero-based rsETH bridge, valued at around $290 million to $293 million at the time. Cross-chain protocol LayerZero stated that the 1/1 decentralized verification network configuration of Kelp DAO relied on a single verification path for processing cross-chain messages, creating a single point of failure. (Cointelegraph)
according to on-chain analyst Yujin's monitoring, STG surged over 40% after an address withdrew 8 million STG, worth $2.2 million, from Gate. Following STG's acquisition by ZRO, it can only be unidirectionally exchanged for ZRO at a fixed rate of 1 STG to 0.08634 ZRO. The price of ZRO is $0.84, which, according to the exchange rate, corresponds to a STG price of approximately $0.07. The current STG price is $0.36.
in April this year, KelpDAO's LayerZero bridge was exploited in a $292 million vulnerability attack, triggering an $8.45 billion deposit run on Aave within 48 hours, marking the largest capital outflow event in decentralized finance (DeFi) history. Aave founder Stani Kulechov stated that the design of Aave V3 withstood the market test, demonstrating the network's "resilience." However, independent data indicates that Aave's survival primarily relied on $300 million in emergency rescue, including a 25,000 ETH guarantee from the Aave DAO and a personal injection of 5,000 ETH (approximately $8.4 million) by Kulechov.Kulechov attributed the vulnerability to third-party infrastructure rather than core smart contracts. However, analysts pointed out that this incident exposed deficiencies in Aave's risk architecture and insurance mechanisms, leading the platform to incur significant bad debt (approximately $123.7 million in wETH). To prevent future bridge failures from triggering systemic bank runs, Aave V4 will adopt a modular "hub-and-spoke" architecture, enabling local risk auto-adjustment and collateral freezing. (CoinDesk)
Aave posted on X, stating that according to the recovery plan, the final batch of rsETH has been sent to the LayerZero lockbox.Aave also noted that rsETH and all Aave markets are currently operating normally.
: On-chain analyst Tom Wan stated on platform X that the current ETH utilization rate has dropped below 90%, and the lending APY has fallen to 1.9%. Since the rsETH LayerZero cross-chain bridge was attacked, the deposits of wstETH and weETH have decreased by approximately $1.2 billion and $1.76 billion, respectively. As the strategy of leveraged looping wstETH/weETH against ETH becomes profitable again, market attention is turning to whether demand for ETH leveraged loops will return, or if capital will continue to wait on the sidelines or flow into protocols like Spark and Morpho.
Aave announced that the first batch of rsETH has been transferred to LayerZero’s OFT adapter, and cross-chain transfers of rsETH between the Ethereum mainnet and various L2 networks have now resumed. This development means that the rsETH cross-chain channels previously affected have been restored, covering operations across the Ethereum mainnet and L2 networks.
According to The Block, the Arbitrum DAO voted to release 30,765.6 ETH (approximately $70 million), previously frozen, to support the DeFi United initiative—aimed at offsetting Kelp DAO’s $292 million exploit loss last month. The vote passed with 90.96% support (182.2 million votes). The attack was allegedly carried out by the North Korean Lazarus hacking group, which exploited a vulnerability in LayerZero’s OFT cross-chain bridge—a single-validator configuration—which allowed attackers to steal 116,500 rsETH and pledge most of the stolen assets as collateral on Aave, resulting in roughly $190 million in bad debt. DeFi United has secured contributions from multiple parties, including 30,000 ETH from Consensys and Joseph Lubin, a 30,000-ETH loan from Mantle, and 5,000 ETH from LayerZero.
Aave has announced the completion of the liquidation of the remaining rsETH position belonging to the Kelp DAO attacker. The related collateral assets will be transferred to the Recovery Guardian multi-signature wallet managed by DeFi United, to be used for restoring rsETH reserves and compensating affected users.This liquidation is part of the recovery plan following the previous $292 million attack incident. Aave had previously passed a governance vote to temporarily adjust the rsETH oracle price in order to create bad debt in the attacker's position and trigger liquidation. The relevant parameters will be restored upon completion of the liquidation. Previously, the attacker exploited the Kelp DAO cross-chain bridge based on LayerZero to forge 116,500 unbacked rsETH and borrowed ETH from protocols such as Aave and Compound. Currently, the recovery funds managed by DeFi United have exceeded $320 million.
According to monitoring by on-chain analyst Specter, the Wasabi Protocol attacker has deposited all stolen funds into Tornado Cash, moving approximately $5.9 million into Tornado Cash. Additionally, North Korean hacking groups have also used Tornado Cash to launder stolen funds from KelpDAO and LayerZero. Their process involved first cross-chaining the assets to Bitcoin, then routing them through Wasabi Mixer, extracting and cross-chaining back to Ethereum, depositing into Tornado Cash, subsequently withdrawing to new wallets and dispersing across multiple addresses. The new wallets then deployed tokens, used the stolen funds to buy in, removed liquidity from the deployment wallet, cross-chained to Tron (USDT), held for several hours or days, and finally sent to OTC-related wallets.
According to on-chain analyst Yujin (@EmberCN), Aave covered $25,000 ETH (approximately $57.75 million) out of its own funds to address bad debt arising from the rsETH incident and spearheaded the “DeFi United” relief initiative. The total bad debt shortfall stands at 75,081 ETH; commitments for loans and donations totaling 69,576 ETH have already been secured, leaving a remaining gap of only 5,505 ETH. Multiple institutions—including LayerZero—have confirmed participation in the relief effort, though specific contribution amounts have not yet been disclosed. The shortfall is expected to be fully covered.
According to on-chain analyst Ai Aunt (@ai_9684xtpa), the address 0xb5E…Fc24e deposited a total of 1.397 million UNI tokens—worth approximately $4.6 million—into three exchanges two hours ago. Notably, the Bybit deposit address has had multiple interactions with the DeFi crypto fund DeFiance Capital, which is an investor in both Aave and LayerZero—two entities closely linked to the recent Kelp DAO hack incident.
According to The Block, JPMorgan analysts noted in their latest report that ongoing DeFi security vulnerabilities and stagnant growth in total value locked (TVL) continue to constrain institutional enthusiasm for the DeFi sector. Recently, Kelp DAO’s cross-chain bridge suffered a major attack, during which the attacker minted $292 million worth of uncollateralized rsETH tokens and borrowed real ETH on Aave, resulting in approximately $230 million in bad debt. This caused DeFi TVL to evaporate by roughly $20 billion within several days. LayerZero and blockchain security researchers have attributed this attack to the North Korean hacker group Lazarus Group; some of the stolen funds have been frozen, while the rest remain in circulation. Analysts also pointed out that DeFi TVL denominated in ETH has remained range-bound for an extended period, raising market concerns about whether DeFi can achieve organic growth sufficient to support institutional adoption. Furthermore, following each security incident, users tend to shift funds into USDT as a safe-haven asset—yet this trend has not yet significantly driven USDT’s market capitalization growth.
According to on-chain analyst Ember (@EmberCN), the rsETH incident on April 18 resulted in a funding shortfall of approximately 68,900 ETH (around $160 million): the hacker collateralized rsETH to borrow 99,600 ETH; after Arbitrum recovered 30,700 ETH, the remaining funds were fully converted by the hacker into BTC. The incident has now entered the remediation phase. Aave is coordinating the establishment of a “DeFi United” relief fund, which has so far received cumulative donations totaling 13,500 ETH (approximately $31.45 million). Donors include Lido Finance (2,500 stETH), ether.fi Foundation (5,000 ETH), Aave founder Stani Kulechov (5,000 ETH), Golem Foundation (1,000 ETH), as well as LayerZero and Ink Foundation (amounts undisclosed).
According to on-chain analyst PeckShield (@PeckShieldAlert), the KelpDAO attacker has transferred ETH from Ethereum to Arbitrum via the Across Protocol, swapped it for USDT, and then routed the funds to TRON DAO via LayerZero.
According to on-chain analyst Yu Jin (@EmberCN), a strategic partner wallet of LayerZero distributed unlocked $ZRO tokens to 52 addresses half an hour ago, transferring a total of 1.21 million $ZRO (approximately $1.97 million). The largest single transfer—855,000 $ZRO (approximately $1.42 million)—has already been sent to Binance.
According to on-chain analyst Yujin (@EmberCN), ZRO—the native token of LayerZero, the cross-chain bridge exploited by hackers in today’s rsETH vulnerability incident—fell 18% on the day, dropping from $1.90 to $1.50. Twenty minutes ago, a Polymarket user with the address “greenrooibos” deposited 978,000 ZRO tokens to Binance, valued at approximately $1.57 million. These ZRO tokens were withdrawn from Binance two weeks ago, when they were worth roughly $2.04 million; this deposit thus corresponds to a loss of approximately $470,000.
According to on-chain analyst Onchain Lens (@OnchainLens), Kelp DAO lost approximately $294 million in the cross-chain bridge exploit. As a result, $ZRO dropped from $2 to $1.40. A whale holding a long $ZRO position on HyperLiquid was partially liquidated, incurring a loss of $2.88 million. The whale still holds the position, with an unrealized loss exceeding $750,000 and a total loss of approximately $28.98 million.
Kamino, a liquidity protocol in the Solana ecosystem, announced on X that neither the platform nor its users have been affected by the current Ethereum rsETH incident. However, as a precautionary measure, Kamino has suspended all interactions with LayerZero-related tokens in its core markets (USDS, LBTC, FBTC). Related reserve assets have been placed into “reduce-only mode,” meaning users can still withdraw funds and repay debts, but deposits and borrowing functions are temporarily disabled. Kamino added that it is in active communication with the LayerZero team and will notify users immediately once the relevant reserves resume normal operations. These measures are purely proactive risk controls; platform and user funds remain unaffected.
According to CoinDesk, Kelp DAO’s LayerZero-based cross-chain bridge was attacked, with the attacker withdrawing 116,500 rsETH—worth approximately $292 million at current prices, or roughly 18% of its circulating supply. This incident has become the largest DeFi attack of 2026 to date. In response, Aave, SparkLend, and Fluid have frozen rsETH-related markets, and Lido Finance has suspended new deposits into its earnETH product. Kelp DAO stated it is jointly investigating the incident with LayerZero, auditing firms, and external security experts.