Kelp DAO Restaked ETH

Aave's deposits remain roughly $8 billion below their pre-hack level five months after the April 18 Kelp DAO bridge exploit, standing at $18.1 billion as of this writing, about 31% under the $26.1 billion held the day before the attack, according to DefiLlama. The breach targeted Kelp DAO's cross-chain bridge message verification rather than any lending logic, with attackers corrupting trusted data feeds to release 116,500 rsETH worth about $292 million, close to 18% of the token's supply, according to security firm Halborn, while Chainalysis linked the attackers to North Korea's Lazarus Group. The unbacked tokens were then supplied into lending markets, with attackers posting 89,567 rsETH on Aave and borrowing roughly $193 million against it; Aave froze rsETH across 11 markets within the hour and froze WETH two days later, and its incident report put the bad debt at $123.7 million if losses were spread evenly, rising to $230.1 million if the bridged rsETH were isolated. A coalition-funded recovery plan gathered about 69,570 ETH in pledges against a 75,081 ETH shortfall, and Arbitrum's Security Council froze 30,765 ETH of the proceeds before its DAO released that sum to Aave in June, though a US court order sought by creditors holding judgments against North Korea still hangs over the money. Aave held $12.5 billion at the end of June and $18.1 billion this week, while AAVE trades near $124, down 3.8% on the day.