Kelp DAO Bridge Loses $292 Million in rsETH Exploit via LayerZero

Protocol Responses and Freezes

Aave froze rsETH markets on V3 and V4 within hours of the exploit.

The founder affirmed the exploit was external and Aave's contracts were not compromised. SparkLend and Fluid froze their rsETH markets. Lido Finance paused further deposits into its earnETH product, which carries rsETH exposure.

Lido Finance clarified that stETH and wstETH are unaffected and that the core Lido staking protocol has no involvement in the incident. Ethena temporarily paused its LayerZero OFT bridges from Ethereum mainnet for roughly six hours while the root cause is identified, stating it has no rsETH exposure and remains more than 101% overcollateralized.

Incident Acknowledgment and Investigation

Kelp acknowledged the incident in its first public X post at 20:10 UTC.

Kelp stated it was investigating with LayerZero, Unichain, its auditors and outside security specialists.

Context and Broader Impact

RsETH is deployed across more than 20 networks including Base, Arbitrum, Linea, Blast, Mantle and Scroll.

LayerZero's OFT standard handles the cross-chain movement of rsETH. AAVE fell about 10%. The $292 million loss is the largest DeFi exploit of 2026. Drift was drained of about $285 million on April 1.

Other Developments

Parasite Pool mined block 945,601 on Friday.

Parasite Pool mined its first block about 48 days before block 945,601.