Ethereum’s validator exit queue swelled to 433,158 ETH on May 3 with a seven-day wait. The figure climbed roughly 72,000% in two weeks as Decentralized Finance (DeFi) exploits triggered restaking withdrawals. The shift tracks April’s $625 million in DeFi losses. A $292 million KelpDAO bridge breach drained restaked ether and rattled lending markets. DeFi Exploit … Read more

Arbitrum’s Security Council seized 30,766 ETH from the KelpDAO hacker, but a US court order now blocks the DAO from touching the $71 million stash. Lawyers for North Korean kidnapping victims aim to claim the money under a 2015 judgment against Pyongyang. The legal action stalls Aave and Kelp DAO’s plans to compensate users hit … Read more

Automated trading bots extracted about $1.32 million by exploiting a price gap in Ant Blockchain (ANB). The dislocation appeared across two Meteora liquidity pools, according to on-chain trackers and Solana market watchers. The largest single trade converted about $0.227 in USD Coin (USDC) into $696,000, spending only 2.32 SOL in priority fees. Multiple wallets repeated … Read more

Wasabi Protocol suffered an admin-key compromise that drained over $5 million from its perpetuals vaults and LongPool across Ethereum, Base, Berachain, and Blast, on-chain security firms Blockaid and PeckShield reported. The attacker gained ADMIN_ROLE through the protocol’s deployer wallet, then upgraded the vaults to a malicious implementation that siphoned user balances. About $4.55 million had … Read more

By Matthew Fisher, CEO, Katana “DeFi is not dead. DeFi is United.” is the rallying cry following the resolution of the $292 million Kelp exploit on April 19 that renewed the spotlight on DeFi’s most seasoned enemy: Lazarus Group, whose estimated 2025 earnings of $1.5bn account for a few percent of North Korea’s GDP. AI … Read more

Avraham “Avi” Eisenberg, the trader convicted over the 2022 Mango Markets exploit, denied ever threatening to attack Aave (AAVE). His pushback followed an Arkham post claiming his wallet had become active again. The on-chain analytics firm shared screenshots of a transaction signed by an address tied to Eisenberg. Arkham framed the activity as his potential … Read more

Scallop, a money market on Sui Network, lost about 150,000 SUI on Sunday after an attacker drained a deprecated rewards contract tied to the protocol’s sSUI spool. The team froze the affected contract within minutes and pledged full reimbursement from its treasury. Core operations resumed in under two hours. Another Sui Exploit Hits Peripheral Code, … Read more

Circle’s Chief Economist Gordon Liao has proposed a major recalibration of Aave’s USD Coin (USDC) interest rate model. The proposal aims to restore Aave USDC liquidity on Ethereum after days of full utilization. Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire endorsed the governance proposal on X, calling attention to Liao’s recommended parameter changes. Why Aave USDC Liquidity Dried … Read more

Sui-based liquid staking platform Volo Protocol said on Wednesday that an attacker drained roughly $3.5 million from three of its vaults, the latest DeFi security breach in a month already shaken by nine-figure exploits. Volo froze every vault after detecting the attack and notified the Sui Foundation. The stolen assets included Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC), gold-backed … Read more

Tron founder Justin Sun publicly called on the KelpDAO bridge hacker to negotiate a return of the stolen funds, warning that a $292 million loss could bring down both Aave and KelpDAO. Sun’s appeal followed the largest Decentralized Finance (DeFi) exploit of 2026, which drained 116,500 rsETH from KelpDAO’s cross-chain bridge on April 18. Sun … Read more

A wave of protocol-level security responses followed the $292 million KelpDAO rsETH exploit on April 19, with BitGo, Polygon, and Katana moving swiftly to isolate potential contagion. The attack drained 116,500 rsETH from Kelp DAO’s LayerZero-powered cross-chain bridge through a forged message that bypassed its Decentralized Verifier Network (DVN) configuration. Protocols Move to Contain Fallout … Read more

Aave (AAVE) fell over 20% on April 19 after the KelpDAO rsETH exploit triggered a wave of whale selling and a record spike in ETH utilization across the lending protocol. The token dropped from roughly $115 to below $92 in hours as large holders rushed to exit positions. Aave’s ETH pool hit 100% utilization, effectively … Read more