Kelp DAO Bridge Exploited for $292 Million in Massive DeFi Hack
The decentralized finance (DeFi) sector has suffered another significant blow with the loss of $292 million in rsETH from Kelp DAO's bridge, making it the largest DeFi hack of 2026.
The attack occurred on Saturday at 17:35 UTC when an attacker exploited a vulnerability in LayerZero's cross-chain infrastructure to drain 116,500 rsETH, worth approximately $292 million. This amount accounts for roughly 18 percent of rsETH's entire circulating supply, tracked by CoinGecko.
The bridge, which held reserves backing wrapped rsETH across more than 20 networks, was exploited through a single forged message sent across LayerZero's cross-chain infrastructure. The attacker deceived the messaging system into treating the fraudulent instruction as legitimate, triggering the release of the stolen tokens to a wallet under their control.




