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Odaily News Kelp DAO officially posted on X regarding the follow-up on the theft incident, stating that the cause was the compromise of two RPC nodes hosted by LayerZero, while the third RPC node suffered a DDoS attack. This was an attack targeting LayerZero's infrastructure; Kelp's own systems were not involved in the construction or operation of this infrastructure.The 1/1 DVN configuration is the scheme documented in LayerZero's documentation and is the default setting for all new OFT deployments. Kelp has been operating on LayerZero's infrastructure since January 2024 and has maintained open communication with the LayerZero team. During Kelp's expansion to Layer2, the DVN configuration was discussed, and the default configuration was explicitly confirmed as appropriate at that time.Kelp's current top priority is to protect user interests and prevent risks from spreading within the DeFi ecosystem. The team is collaborating with various parties in the ecosystem to analyze the impact, seek support, and explore all possible mitigation solutions.
Odaily News Lido posted on platform X stating that on April 18th, the Kelp cross-chain bridge was attacked, resulting in the theft of approximately 116,500 rsETH (worth about $292 million). Subsequently, the related assets were frozen on lending markets such as Aave.Its treasury product EarnETH has approximately a 9% risk exposure (about $21.6 million) through leveraged rsETH/ETH positions on Aave. Meanwhile, rising borrowing utilization is creating cost pressure on other strategies. The team is advancing deleveraging and reducing overall risk.Lido pointed out that the final impact of the rsETH positions depends on the subsequent handling by Kelp, LayerZero, and Aave, including loss sharing, asset recovery, and bad debt processing.Regarding risk mitigation, EarnETH can, if necessary, activate a $3 million "first-loss protection mechanism" (provided by the DAO treasury) to cover losses. The specific scale of its use is still pending further evaluation. Currently, the treasury has suspended deposits and withdrawals to ensure fairness and complete loss assessment. If the handling process is slow, redemption channels may be reopened based on the worst-case loss expectations.The official emphasized that stETH and wstETH are unaffected, and the core staking protocol was not involved in this incident.
According to an official Lido tweet, on April 18, 2026, attackers stole 116,500 rsETH (approximately $292 million) from the Kelp cross-chain bridge. Lending platforms including Aave subsequently froze the rsETH market. Lido’s EarnETH treasury holds approximately 9% exposure to rsETH (roughly $21.6 million) via leveraged positions on Aave; deposits and withdrawals are currently suspended. The EarnETH team is actively reducing leverage and mitigating risk; the final loss amount will depend on subsequent decisions by Kelp, LayerZero, and Aave. The Lido DAO treasury has a $3 million “first-loss protection mechanism,” which may be activated—via burning DAO treasury shares—as needed. Lido’s core staking protocol, as well as stETH and wstETH, remain unaffected by this incident.
According to CoinDesk, Kelp DAO will dispute LayerZero’s explanation of the $290 million rsETH cross-chain bridge vulnerability, stating that the compromised single-validator configuration relied on LayerZero’s own infrastructure and that this setup was part of LayerZero’s default integration—rather than a custom choice by Kelp DAO violating recommended practices. The attacker stole approximately 116,500 rsETH by compromising the servers LayerZero used to verify cross-chain transactions and disrupting its fallback nodes. Kelp DAO emphasized that the incident affected only the LayerZero-based bridging layer, leaving its core liquidity re-staking contracts unimpacted. LayerZero subsequently responded by announcing it would cease signing messages for any applications using a single-validator configuration and would mandate secure migration.
According to an analysis by SlowMist founder Yu Xian (@evilcos), the core of the recent KelpDAO hack—resulting in approximately $290 million stolen—was a targeted poisoning attack against the downstream RPC infrastructure of LayerZero’s DVN (Decentralized Validator Network). The specific attack steps were as follows: First, the attackers obtained the list of RPC nodes used by LayerZero’s DVN; second, they compromised two independent RPC clusters and replaced their op-geth binary files; third, using selective spoofing techniques, they returned forged malicious payloads exclusively to the DVN while serving legitimate data to all other IPs; fourth, they launched DDoS attacks against uncompromised RPC nodes, forcing the DVN to fail over to the poisoned nodes; finally, after the forged messages were validated, the malicious binary self-destructed and erased its logs. As a result, LayerZero’s DVN signed validations for transactions that “never occurred.”
Currently, the LayerZero Labs DVN has resumed operations and announced that it will no longer sign or verify messages for applications still using the 1/1 configuration. LayerZero has collaborated with multiple law enforcement agencies worldwide and is actively assisting in tracking the stolen funds.
Odaily News: A LayerZero cross-chain bridge related to Kelp DAO was hacked on Saturday, resulting in 116,500 rsETH worth $291 million flowing to a new wallet. The hacker used the illicitly obtained rsETH as collateral to borrow on Aave, causing the utilization rate of Aave's core lending pool to reach 100% and triggering a liquidity crunch. According to monitoring by 0xngmi, as of early Sunday, the net withdrawal amount from Aave had reached $6.2 billion. Kelp DAO has suspended the rsETH contracts on the Ethereum mainnet and several L2 networks. Affected by this, the price of the Aave token fell 16% to $90.13, and the price of Ethereum dropped 2% to $2,300. Currently, Justin Sun has posted on platform X attempting to negotiate with the hacker.
According to an official announcement from Curve Finance, due to a hacker attack on the rsETH LayerZero infrastructure, Curve Finance has suspended its LayerZero infrastructure for security reasons, pending further investigation into the root cause before resuming operations. This suspension affects the following: cross-chain bridging of CRV tokens from BNB Chain, Sonic, Avalanche, Fantom, Etherlink, and Kava (chains using native bridges remain unaffected), as well as the crvUSD fast bridge functionality (the L2 slow bridge remains fully operational). Meanwhile, KelpDAO is also reported to have suffered a vulnerability exploit involving approximately $291 million; the exact extent of losses is still under investigation.
According to an official announcement, Curve Finance has suspended its LayerZero infrastructure as a precautionary measure following a hacker attack on rsETH’s LayerZero infrastructure, pending further investigation into the root cause. This adjustment affects cross-chain CRV bridging initiated from chains including BNB, Sonic, Avalanche, Fantom, Etherlink, and Kava; bridging from other chains remains unaffected and continues to use native bridges. Additionally, the crvUSD fast bridge is impacted, while the slower bridge to L2s remains fully operational.
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.
Axelar Network stated that the hacker attack and theft of funds undermine users’ overall trust in blockchain systems and slow down the adoption of the global ledger it envisions. Axelar expressed its support for the LayerZero team in navigating this difficult situation and rebuilding trust. Regarding this approximately $290 million attack, Axelar emphasized that—pending final forensic findings—the incident once again highlights the need for multi-layered security in cross-chain bridge construction. This includes ensuring operational security for bridge operators, validators, and validating nodes; providing proper incentives and training; and removing validators whose technical capabilities are not adequately demonstrated. Additionally, operators must be sufficiently numerous, structurally heterogeneous, diverse, and geographically distributed to prevent ultimate control by a single entity.
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.
LayerZero tweeted that it is aware of the rsETH vulnerability incident and has been actively collaborating with the KelpDAO team on response and remediation efforts since the incident occurred, while continuing to monitor the situation. LayerZero stated that, aside from the rsETH-related incident, all other applications remain secure. Regarding the root cause of the incident, LayerZero is jointly investigating with SEAL_Org and other parties, and pledged to jointly publish a comprehensive post-mortem report with KelpDAO once all information has been gathered.
Odaily News The Ethereum restaking protocol Kelp has officially confirmed suspicious cross-chain activity involving rsETH. It has currently paused the rsETH contracts on the mainnet and multiple L2s and launched an investigation into the attack. It is also collaborating with LayerZero, Unichain, as well as audit firms and security experts to conduct a root cause analysis (RCA). A post-mortem report will be released subsequently.
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.
Odaily News On-chain data indicates that Kelp DAO's rsETH bridge protocol based on LayerZero is suspected of being exploited by hackers, resulting in a loss of 116,500 rsETH, valued at approximately $292 million.