Ethereum liquid staking protocol Kelp DAO says its restaked Ether token has been restored with a five-week recovery effort after the protocol suffered a $293 million exploit by North Korea\u2019s Lazarus Group on April 18.<\/p>\n
Kelp DAO posted<\/a> to X on Monday that the final tranche of 20,373.7 Kelp DAO restaked ETH (rsETH) tokens was sent<\/a> to the LayerZero smart contract responsible for locking, minting, burning and releasing rsETH during cross-chain transfers.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThis closes the operational part of the rsETH recovery plan,\u201d Kelp said. Several crypto protocols contributed<\/a> funds to help restore rsETH\u2019s backing under the DeFi United initiative.<\/p>\n \n Source: <\/em>Stani Kulechov<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n The Kelp DAO hack in April caused a ripple effect<\/a> throughout the crypto lending market that disrupted billions of dollars in liquidity and resurfaced concerns about the interconnectedness of decentralized finance protocols.<\/p>\n Aave was one of the hardest hit as the Kelp DAO attacker put a large portion of the stolen 116,500 rsETH up as collateral on its lending platform to borrow wrapped Ether, leaving $190 million in bad debt and triggering a wave of withdrawals.<\/p>\n The Kelp DAO hack was one of 25 crypto hacks in April,<\/a> which saw a combined $630 million worth of losses, the worst month since February 2025, when crypto exchange Bybit was hacked for a record $1.5 billion<\/a>.<\/p>\n The first tranche of 25,000 rsETH was transferred<\/a> on May 13, allowing rsETH bridging between the Ethereum mainnet and the blockchain\u2019s layer 2 networks to reopen.\u00a0<\/p>\n Kelp reopened withdrawals for rsETH<\/a> the following day and said<\/a> on Tuesday that rsETH mints, redemptions and rewards operations \u201chave been running normally.\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Kelp DAO exploit contributed to Aave\u2019s total value locked<\/a> falling from $26.4 billion to below $14 billion, losing its long-held position as the largest DeFi protocol by TVL.<\/p>\n Related: <\/strong><\/em>Crypto hackers stole $17B over past 10 years: DefiLlama<\/strong><\/em><\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n DefiLlama data<\/a> shows that net outflows from Aave\u2019s lending markets have eased over the past month.<\/p>\n However, Aave\u2019s TVL has shown no signs of recovery, hovering between the $13.9 billion and $15.1 billion mark since about a week after the incident<\/a> took place.<\/p>\n \n Source: Aave\u2019s change in TVL in 2026. Source: <\/em>DefiLlama<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n Magazine: <\/strong><\/em>The legal battle over who can claim DeFi\u2019s stolen millions<\/strong><\/em><\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\nAave\u2019s TVL bleed stops, but has not recovered<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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