Kelp DAO said it detected suspicious cross-chain activity involving rsETH on April 18 and paused rsETH contracts on Ethereum mainnet and several layer 2 networks while it investigates. Soon after, Aave said it froze rsETH markets on both V3 and V4, adding that Aave's own contracts were not exploited and that the problem was tied to the Kelp DAO rsETH bridge.

What is confirmed

Kelp's public statement says it is working with LayerZero, Unichain, its auditors, and outside security specialists on a root cause analysis. The protocol did not publish a confirmed loss total or a technical explanation in that first notice.

Outside reporting has put the damage much higher. CoinDesk reported that roughly 116,500 rsETH, worth about $292 million at current prices, were drained from the bridge reserve. Until Kelp publishes a full post-mortem, that figure should be treated as reported rather than final.

Why it matters

The immediate risk is not limited to Kelp users. rsETH is used across DeFi as collateral and as a building block in yield strategies, so bridge failures can spread quickly into lending markets and vault products. Aave's freeze is designed to stop new deposits and borrowing against rsETH while protocols assess whether wrapped versions remain fully backed.

The conservative reading for now is simple: the exploit appears real, containment has started, and downstream DeFi venues are moving before all of the facts are in.