Kelp DAO says rsETH has fully recovered 5 weeks after the hack
Ethereum's liquid staking protocol Kelp DAO says its Ether token, which was recaptured after the protocol was hit by a $293 million exploit by North Korea's Lazarus group on April 18, has been restored following a five-week recovery effort.
Kelp DAO posted on Monday X that the final tranche of 20,373.7 Kelp DAO ETH (rsETH) tokens were sent to the LayerZero smart contract responsible for locking, simplifying and releasing rETH during on-chain transfers.
“This closes the working part of the rsETH recovery plan,” Kelp said. Several crypto protocols have contributed funds to help restore support for rETH through the DeFi United initiative.
Source: Stan Kulekov
The hack of Kelp's DAO in April had a major impact on the crypto lending market, disrupting the liquidity of billions of funds and raising concerns about the interconnectedness of decentralized financial protocols.
The KelpDao attacker wrapped up a large portion of the stolen 116,500 rETH and placed it on its lending platform to borrow ether, leaving $190 million in bad debt and triggering a wave of withdrawals.Ave was one of the hardest hit.
The Kelp Dao hack was one of 25 crypto hacks in April that saw a total loss of $630 million, the worst month since February 2025, when crypto exchange Bybit was hacked for $1.5 billion.
The first tranche of 25,000 rETH was transferred on May 13, allowing rETH to reopen between the Ethereum mainnet and the blockchain's Layer 2 networks.
Kelp reopened withdrawals for rsETH the next day and said on Tuesday that rETH mints, redemptions and rewards are “working normally”.
Aave TVL's bleeding stops, but does not recover.
Kelp's DAO exploitation contributed to Aave's total value dropping from $26.4 billion to $14 billion, losing its position as the largest DeFi protocol in TVL.
Related: Crypto Hackers Steal $17 Billion Over Last 10 Years: Defillama
Defilama data showed net outflows from Aave's credit markets fell last month.
However, Aave's TVL has shown no signs of recovery, hovering between $13.9 billion and $15.1 billion since about a week after the incident.
Source: Aave change in 2026 by TVL. Source: Defillama
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