Kelp DAO rsETH exploit drains about $290M, triggers Aave liquidity crunch and multichain emergency measures

A cross‑chain exploit drained approximately 116,500 rsETH — valued at about $290–292 million — from Kelp DAO, with attackers moving and converting funds that on-chain traces show controlling over 106,000 ETH worth of assets ^{[1] [2]}.

The breach produced a liquidity shock on Aave after the attacker used rsETH as collateral to borrow ETH, generating bad debt and driving Aave’s ETH pool to full utilization; withdrawals were restricted and panic-driven outflows reportedly topped $5.4 billion, while the AAVE token fell roughly 18% amid the sell‑off ^{[3] [4] [2]}.

Kelp DAO and affected lending protocols enacted emergency measures to contain the incident; Kelp DAO’s response reportedly prevented additional exploit attempts while on-chain analytics continued to follow the attacker’s movements across Ethereum and Arbitrum ^{[1] [2] [4]}.

On‑chain investigators and market participants are monitoring fund flows and protocol exposure as emergency steps and further analyses continue across Ethereum and Arbitrum networks ^{[4] [3]}.