LayerZero has finally committed to contributing to the DeFi United initiative formed in the wake of the $292 million Kelp DAO exploit.
According to an announcement on Tuesday, the crypto infrastructure provider, on which some onlookers lay some amount of blame for the attack, is pledging 5,000 ETH to DeFi United and depositing an additional 5,000 ETH to strengthen Aave’s liquidity.
The protocol will also take additional steps to deepen the liquidity of GHO, the native stablecoin on Aave, according to an X post. At an exchange rate of about $2,300 at publication time, according to The Block’s price page, LayerZero’s contribution comes in at around $23 million.
The commitment comes about five days after LayerZero first announced it would contribute to an “industry-wide recovery initiative,” now called DeFi United, meant to restore rsETH backing following the exploit.
On April 18, attackers used a sophisticated RPC-poisoning attack on LayerZero Labs’ Decentralized Verifier Network to forge a cross-chain message and release unbacked rsETH from Kelp’s LayerZero-powered bridge adapter on Ethereum.
Around 107,000 rsETH ended up in lending positions across Aave, resulting in substantial bad debt on the protocol that a group of unified actors has been working to unwind.
Dozens of DeFi protocols and individuals have contributed funds to the DeFi United initiative, which has now raised over $300 million in ETH and stablecoins. Aave, which is coordinating the effort, recently released a detailed technical recovery plan to restore rsETH backing.
Some onlookers place a significant amount of blame on LayerZero, considering that KelpDAO used a 1-of-1 DVN setup with only LayerZero Labs as the verifier. LayerZero claims it recommended multi-DVN redundancy, while Kelp claims it used the default configuration.
LayerZero’s contribution is significant, placing it among some of the largest contributors. Arbitrum DAO has a pending vote to release 30765 ETH, while together Consensys and Joseph Lubin are contributing 30,000 ETH, an amount matched in a low-interest loan from Mantle. Aave DAO also has a pending DAO to approve a 25,000 ETH contribution, adding to Aave founder Stani Kulechov’s 5,000 ETH.
Kelp, for its part, kicked in 2,000 ETH.
Circle is also contributing, but buying AAVE tokens to help buttress the protocol. There are also dozens of smaller, unnamed contributors, and support from protocols like Puffer, Lido, and others.
The Kelp DAO hack appears to have reverberated across DeFi. According to The Block’s data, the total value locked across the sector stands at $80 billion, down from about $95 billion just ahead of the hack.
Aave alone has seen its TVL on its Ethereum mainnet deployment drop from above $32 billion to $20.3 billion.
© 2026 The Block. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.
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