Kelp DAO Restores rsETH After $293M Hack, Completes Recovery
Kelp DAO has fully restored the backing for its liquid restaked token, rsETH, five weeks after a $293 million exploit compromised the protocol‘s cross-chain bridge infrastructure. The incident, attributed to North Korea’s Lazarus Group, caused significant disruption across the decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem. The final tranche of 20,373.7 rsETH was transferred on May 25 to the LayerZero smart contract responsible for managing the token‘s cross-chain activity. This marks the completion of Kelp DAO’s recovery plan, which relied heavily on community and industry contributions. According to Kelps post on X (formerly Twitter), rsETH mints, redemptions, and rewards operations have resumed normal functionality. The hack on April 18 exploited vulnerabilities in Kelps LayerZero-powered bridge, enabling the fraudulent minting of 116,500 rsETH—valued at approximately $292–$300 million. The attack disrupted liquidity in DeFi markets, with Aave suffering particularly severe impacts as the attacker leveraged stolen rsETH as collateral. This resulted in $190 million in bad debt for Aave and catalyzed net outflows that halved its total value locked (TVL) from $26.4 billion to under $14 billion, according to DefiLlama data. Industry-Wide Recovery Efforts In the wake of the exploit, Kelp DAO launched a comprehensive recovery initiative backed by over $300 million in pledges from DeFi protocols and organizations








