North Korea strikes again 👨‍💻

The $292 million KelpDAO exploit that rattled DeFi over the weekend has been attributed to the perennially busy North Korean hackers Lazarus Group.

Author

Stephen Graves
April 20, 2026

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📝 What you need to know

Another day, another North Korean hack—this time, the ever-busy keyboard jockeys of the DPRK’s Lazarus Group struck DeFi protocol KelpDAO, draining $292 million from its LayerZero-powered bridge and sparking a liquidity crunch among Aave users. The recriminations have been flying thick and fast, with LayerZero blaming KelpDAO for using a single verifier to approve transfers in and out of the bridge, while KelpDAO pointed the finger at LayerZero’s own infrastructure.

That wasn’t even the only hack to rattle the crypto space over the weekend, with cloud platform Vercel—used by many crypto frontends to host their UI—falling victim to a “highly sophisticated” and likely AI-assisted security incident.

LayerZero Pins $292M KelpDAO Bridge Hack on North Korea’s Lazarus Group

Attackers forged a cross-chain message, came within minutes of a second drain, and wiped their tracks on the way out.

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📚 Watch, Listen & Learn

📹️ WATCH: Elon Mentions Asteroid Meme & It Blows Up, DeFi Shaken With $292M KelpDAO Exploit, BTC at $75K

🎧 LISTEN: The Decrypt News roundup with TylerD - April 20th

A $292 million KelpDAO exploit just triggered a DeFi bank run. Bitcoin traders go from euphoria to fear after Hormuz closes again. And Michael Saylor wants to make STRC dividends hit twice a month.

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