LayerZero Says KelpDAO Lost About $290 Million in RPC-Linked Exploit
According to LayerZero Labs, the incident remained limited to KelpDAO’s rsETH configuration after compromised downstream RPC infrastructure used by its DVN was replaced and operations resumed.
RSETH
Fact Check
The validated evidence supports only the broader proposition that KelpDAO suffered a roughly $290M-$292M rsETH exploit involving a LayerZero-powered bridge, as reported by CoinDesk's '2026's biggest crypto exploit: $292 million gets drained from Kelp DAO with wrapped ether stranded across 20 chains' and Yahoo Finance's 'Aave WETH Suppliers Urged to Withdraw After KelpDAO rsETH Exploit'. However, the user's more specific statement attributes the cause to compromised downstream RPC infrastructure used by LayerZero's DVN, says the blast radius was limited to KelpDAO's rsETH configuration, and says the infrastructure was replaced and operations resumed. I was unable to validate those narrower details from the user-provided X post or other authoritative primary material in this run. Since the key explanatory and remediation details remain unconfirmed, the best terminal assessment is insufficient_evidence rather than likely_true or likely_false.
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Summary
In an official update, LayerZero Labs said the attack that led to about $290 million in losses at KelpDAO was confined to KelpDAO’s rsETH configuration. The company said attackers compromised downstream RPC infrastructure used by LayerZero Labs’ DVN, but affected RPC nodes have since been replaced and the DVN has resumed operations. LayerZero also said other applications were not affected.
Terms & Concepts
- RPC infrastructure: Remote Procedure Call infrastructure enables applications and services to communicate with blockchain networks to read data or submit transactions.
- rsETH: rsETH is KelpDAO’s related asset configuration, which LayerZero said was the only part affected by the incident.
- DVN: DVN, or Decentralized Verifier Network, is a LayerZero verification system used to validate cross-chain messages.