Aave Faces Potential Losses of Up to $230 Million Following Kelp DAO Bridge Exploit

A recent exploit of the Kelp DAO and LayerZero bridge has put lending protocol Aave at risk of losing up to $230 million, with the final impact dependent on the resolution of the situation. According to a report published by Aave Labs and LlamaRisk on the Aave governance forum, the incident revolves around rsETH, a liquid restaking token issued by KelpDAO, which relies on a bridge mechanism to transfer tokens between blockchains. An attacker took advantage of this setup by creating a forged transfer message, resulting in the creation of new tokens without backing, and releasing 116,500 rsETH from the Ethereum-side bridge. Instead of selling the assets, the attacker used 89,567 rsETH as collateral to borrow approximately $190 million in ETH and related assets across Ethereum and Arbitrum, exposing Aave to potentially impaired collateral. Aave Labs acted swiftly to mitigate the risk by freezing rsETH markets, setting loan-to-value ratios to zero, and halting new borrowing against the asset. The outcome now hinges on Kelp's handling of the shortfall, with potential losses ranging from $124 million if spread across all rsETH holders to $230 million if isolated to Layer 2 networks. The exploit was made possible by weaknesses in Kelp's verification process for cross-chain messages using LayerZero, allowing the attacker to manipulate the system and extract value. This incident has raised concerns about the security of interconnected DeFi infrastructure and has led to a withdrawal of around $6 billion in total value locked from Aave. Discussions are ongoing to address potential losses, with the report stating that the DAO treasury holds approximately $181 million in assets.