Recovery hopes fade as Kelp DAO hacker launders nearly all $220M in stolen funds
2026-06-01 • Cointelegraph •
https://cointelegraph.com/news/kelp-dao-recovery-hacker-launders-most-funds-293m-exploit
The Kelp DAO exploiter reportedly laundered about $220 million of the $293 million stolen in the April 18 rsETH exploit, leaving only about $1.7 million traceable in the tagged wallet while $71 million remains frozen by Arbitrum’s Security Council. Onchain analysis cited in the article says the actor bridged funds to Bitcoin through Wasabi and then moved them back to Ethereum before using Tornado Cash, reducing recovery prospects. Kelp DAO restored its rsETH token through a five-week recovery effort and moved from its LayerZero-powered bridge to Chainlink CCIP after attributing the incident to weaknesses in its cross-chain setup, while LayerZero said the root issue was Kelp DAO’s single-DVN implementation.