According to the source, KelpDAO’s April 18 bridge exploit was later tied by LayerZero to Lazarus Group, while Arbitrum froze about 30,766 ETH linked to the attack pending governance approval.
KelpDAO’s April 18 cross-chain bridge exploit triggered a dispute with LayerZero over responsibility, with KelpDAO blaming a compromised LayerZero remote procedure call node and LayerZero later attributing the attack to North Korea’s Lazarus Group, according to the source. The incident was described as a roughly $290 million attack and was followed by more than $13 billion in DeFi total value locked falling within 48 hours, underscoring broader confidence risks around bridge infrastructure. Arbitrum’s Security Council later froze about 30,766 ETH tied to the exploit after receiving attacker identity information from law enforcement, moving the funds to an intermediate freezing wallet on April 20. Any future use of the frozen assets requires Arbitrum governance approval and coordination with relevant parties. David Schwartz defended the freeze by comparing it to Bitcoin’s 2010 overflow rollback.