Cardano Founder Warns KelpDAO Hack Exposes Ethereum’s Weakest Link

Bitcoinist04-22 11:00

Trusted Editorial content, reviewed by leading industry experts and seasoned editors. Ad Disclosure Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson used his latest livestream to argue that the roughly $292 million...

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Ad Disclosure\n\nCardano founder Charles Hoskinson used his latest livestream to argue that the roughly $292 million...</p>\n\n<a href=\"https://bitcoinist.com/cardano-founder-kelpdao-hack-ethereum-weakest-link/\">Source Link</a>\n\n</div>\n","source":"bitcoinist_highlight","html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>Cardano Founder Warns KelpDAO Hack Exposes Ethereum’s Weakest Link</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nCardano Founder Warns KelpDAO Hack Exposes Ethereum’s Weakest Link\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2026-04-22 11:00 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://bitcoinist.com/cardano-founder-kelpdao-hack-ethereum-weakest-link/><strong>Bitcoinist</strong></a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\n<p>Trusted Editorial content, reviewed by leading industry experts and seasoned editors. Ad Disclosure\n\nCardano founder Charles Hoskinson used his latest livestream to argue that the roughly $292 million...</p>\n\n<a href=\"https://bitcoinist.com/cardano-founder-kelpdao-hack-ethereum-weakest-link/\">Source Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","isBrief":false,"type":0,"news_type":1,"symbol":"ETU","symbol_name":"T-Rex 2X Long Ether Daily Target ETF","start_time":0,"source_url":"https://bitcoinist.com/cardano-founder-kelpdao-hack-ethereum-weakest-link/","article_id":"2629942040","we_media_id":null,"thumbnails":["https://bitcoinist.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-19-074332.png?resize=350%2C250"],"rights":{"source":"bitcoinist_highlight","url":"https://bitcoinist.com/cardano-founder-kelpdao-hack-ethereum-weakest-link/","rn_cache_url":null,"directOrigin":true},"url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=2629942040","pubTimestamp":1776826833,"columns":[],"sourceInfo":{"source_id":"bitcoinist_highlight","name":"Bitcoinst"},"weMediaInfo":null,"summary":"Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson used his latest livestream to argue that the roughly $292 million KelpDAO exploit was not just...","collect":0,"end_time":0,"defaultTopTitle":"bitcoinist.com","property":[],"viewcount":null,"language":"en","relate_stocks":{"ETU":"T-Rex 2X Long Ether Daily Target ETF","ETCO":"Grayscale Ethereum Covered Call ETF","ETHT":"ProShares Ultra Ether ETF","BTF":"比特币&以太币期货ETF-CoinShares","YETH":"Roundhill Ether Covered Call Strategy ETF","ETHU":"2倍以太币期货ETF-Volatility Shares","QETH":"以太坊ETF-Invesco Galaxy","ETHV":"以太坊ETF-VanEck","EZET":"以太坊ETF-Franklin","ETHW":"以太坊ETF-Bitwise","ETH":"低成本以太坊ETF-Grayscale","ETQ":"T-Rex 2X Inverse Ether Daily Target ETF","ETHA":"以太坊ETF-iShares","EETH":"以太币期货ETF-ProShares","ETHD":"ProShares UltraShort Ether ETF","FETH":"以太币ETF-Fidelity","ETHE":"最大以太坊ETF-Grayscale","ETHI":"Defiance Leveraged Long Income Ethereum ETF","SETH":"1倍做空以太币期货ETF-Proshares"},"translate_title":"Cardano创始人警告KelpDAO黑客攻击暴露了以太币最薄弱的环节","themeId":null,"isJumpTheme":false,"ttsUrl":null,"symbols_score_info":{"QETH":0.6,"ETH":0.6,"BTF":0.6,"ETHD":0.6,"ETHU":0.6,"ETHT":0.6,"SETH":0.6,"ETQ":0.6,"ETHW":0.6,"ETHE":0.6,"FETH":0.6,"ETU":0.6,"ETCO":0.6,"ETHA":0.6,"YETH":0.6,"EETH":0.6,"EZET":0.6,"ETHV":0.6,"ETHI":0.6},"content_text":"Trusted Editorial content, reviewed by leading industry experts and seasoned editors. Ad Disclosure\n\nCardano founder Charles Hoskinson used his latest livestream to argue that the roughly $292 million KelpDAO exploit was not just another bridge failure, but a broader warning about how Ethereum’s restaking, cross-chain messaging, and lending stack can turn a single compromise into system-wide contagion.\nIn Hoskinson’s telling, the April 18 attack exposed what he sees as the most fragile part of modern DeFi: not necessarily application-level smart contracts, but the verification layers and interdependencies that sit between protocols. He said the exploit, which involved about 116,500 rsETH drained from KelpDAO’s Ethereum escrow, should force a wider industry conversation about bridge trust assumptions, verifier design, and the speed at which bad collateral can spread through lending markets.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCardano Founder Warns Of Dangerous Flaw At The Heart Of Ethereum DeFi\nRather than deliver a standard postmortem, Hoskinson said he took internal incident-report material and used AI to turn it into a website that walked viewers through the mechanics of the exploit. That structure framed his larger point: the failure, as he described it, did not begin with broken contract math inside KelpDAO itself, nor with an obvious accounting flaw at LayerZero. Instead, he said it centered on a forged cross-chain message that was accepted as legitimate and allowed funds to be released on Ethereum.\nRelated Reading: Cardano Leadership Structure Comes Under Scrutiny, Clouding Its Future – See Why\n“So, this was not a smart contract issue with Kelp and this was not a smart contract issue with LayerZero, but this was a cross-chain message forgery,” Hoskinson said. “So this was something new and different.”\nThe Cardano founder repeatedly returned to one design choice in particular: the reported use of a one-of-one verifier configuration. In his explanation, best practice would be a multi-verifier model such as three-of-five, but KelpDAO’s setup relied on a single active DVN. That, he argued, created an unacceptable single point of failure in a system already layered with staking wrappers, restaking protocols, bridges, and lending venues.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n“The failure was in the verification logic, not the application logic,” he said. “Kelp did everything right from their contracts. They’re audited. They’re working well. The application’s working well. It’s the bridge configuration.”\nHoskinson also emphasized that the industry still lacks a settled account of exactly where responsibility lies.\nAccording to his summary, three separate root-cause analyses emerged after the exploit: one from LayerZero, one from KelpDAO, and one tied to LlamaRisk and Aave governance discussions but none fully agree. That leaves open whether the break occurred in the messaging layer, verifier setup, KelpDAO’s acceptance logic, or in the seams between them.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nRelated Reading: Cardano Founder Warns XRP Investors, Is Ripple Doing Something Wrong?\nWhat made the event especially significant, in his view, was not only the theft itself but what happened next. Instead of dumping the stolen rsETH on decentralized exchanges, the attacker allegedly used it as collateral in lending markets to borrow more liquid assets. That turned an exploit into a balance-sheet problem for other protocols, leaving what Hoskinson described as poisoned collateral behind.\nHe called that dynamic the real novelty of the incident. “It wasn’t just a bridge hack. It spread to lending which then created bad debt contagion inside these lending protocols. It created a bank run and we saw $13 billion of TVL pulled in a very short period of time for a $290 million hack.”\nThe Cardano founder said the broader DeFi liquidity shock reached far beyond KelpDAO itself. Citing public reporting referenced in his walkthrough, he pointed to at least nine directly affected protocols and said Aave alone saw between $6.6 billion and $8.45 billion in losses, while rsETH traded in a volatile range between about $1,600 and $2,500 during the 24 hours following the attack.\nHe also raised the possibility of Lazarus involvement, though he acknowledged attribution remains unconfirmed. “There’s a lot of evidence here that there’s Lazarus connections,” he said, before adding that no independent forensics firms had definitively proven it.\nAt press time, Cardano (ADA) traded at $0.2504.\nCardano hovers below key resistance, 1-monthly chart | Source: ADAUSDT on TradingView.com\nFeatured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com\n\n\n\nEditorial Process for bitcoinist is centered on delivering thoroughly researched, accurate, and unbiased content. 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