•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Ripple CTO Emeritus David Schwartz has questioned the explanation for the KelpDAO exploit that was reported on April 18, in which the liquid restaking protocol lost more than $290 million.
In an update shortly after the incident, LayerZero said the problem was isolated to KelpDAO’s rsETH configuration and attributed it to the protocol’s single-DVN setup. LayerZero further stated that the highly sophisticated attack targeted the poisoning of the downstream RPC infrastructure used by the LayerZero Labs DVN.
A week after the hack, the crypto community continues to seek answers about what transpired, describing it as the biggest DeFi hack to date in 2026.
Schwartz’s comments focus on whether the conditions that led to the exploit have changed since earlier periods. He asked whether “something has changed between late 2024 and now,” raising a related issue: if no application previously relied solely on a single DVN, he questioned how the same configuration could now be identified as the root cause of the KelpDAO incident.
Ripple’s head of research, Aanchal Malhotra, also weighed in on the rsETH hack. In a separate post, Malhotra said the industry is moving toward improved building blocks, including “ZK proving” and “tighter audit standards,” but added that “primitives alone aren’t enough.”
Malhotra emphasized that security proofs and deployment environments must be evaluated together, noting that until that happens, “the gap remains.”
Premium gym chains are entering a “golden era” that is ending or already in decline, as rising operating costs collide with shifting consumer preferences toward more flexible, community-based ways to exercise. Long-term memberships are shrinking, margins are pressured by higher rents and facility expenses, and competition from smaller, more personalized…
