Kelp DAO Sues LayerZero Over $292M rsETH Exploit Tied to North Korea-Linked Hackers
Kelp DAO, operating under parent company Evercrest Technologies, filed a civil lawsuit in British Columbia's Supreme Court against LayerZero Labs and co-founder Bryan Pellegrino over a $292 million exploit of its rsETH liquid restaking token in April 2026. Attackers, attributed to North Korea-linked group TraderTraitor, used social engineering to compromise LayerZero developer credentials and manipulate internal RPC nodes, allowing them to forge a cross-chain message that bypassed bridge verification. This enabled the minting of 116,500 unbacked rsETH tokens on Ethereum — about 18% of total supply — making it the largest single DeFi exploit of 2026. Kelp DAO alleges LayerZero was negligent and concealed flaws in its technology, with a key vulnerability being the bridge's single-verifier configuration that left no independent check against fraudulent attestations. LayerZero's Pellegrino has publicly denied the claims, calling the lawsuit meritless and stating he will contest it in Vancouver.
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