KelpDAO Sues LayerZero Over $292 Million Exploit

Evercrest Technologies, the company behind KelpDAO, filed a civil claim in British Columbia on September 24 against LayerZero and its chief executive, Bryan Pellegrino, over an exploit that drained 116,500 rsETH from KelpDAO’s bridge in April. The tokens were worth about $292 million at the time. The allegations have not been tested in court, and the parties dispute who bears responsibility for the loss. KelpDAO alleges that LayerZero failed to disclose risks in its technology and did not prevent attackers from compromising infrastructure used to verify crosschain messages. It also says LayerZero reviewed and approved the bridge’s deployment and configuration in writing before the attack. The full complaint has not been made publicly available, and the underlying communications have not been independently assessed. LayerZero’s account points to the bridge’s use of a single decentralized verifier network, or DVN, as a critical weakness. The company has said it recommended multiple verifiers, while KelpDAO says its configuration followed LayerZero’s documented defaults.