Kelp DAO and Aave are moving to restore normalcy for rsETH holders. According to reports from both teams, full operations for the rsETH token are set to resume within the coming days, marking the successful conclusion of the initial recovery phases following the April hack.
The Mechanics
Kelp confirmed that the 117,132 rsETH stolen during the attack will be progressively refilled into the LayerZero OFT adapter on the mainnet. These funds are being sourced from the Aave Recovery Guardian and the Kelp Recovery Safe. While the total refill process is expected to take approximately two weeks, the "unpausing" of core functions will happen much sooner.
Withdrawals are tentatively scheduled to reopen within 24 hours of the first liquidity tranche. Once the smart contracts are active, users will be able to resume deposits, redemptions, and bridging as usual.
Migration
In the wake of the incident, Kelp DAO has radically tightened its security architecture. Bridging transactions now require four independent attestors instead of one, and block confirmation requirements have been raised from 42 to 64. Additionally, the protocol has deprecated all direct L2-to-L2 routes to minimize future risk vectors.
Kelp also reaffirmed its plans to migrate to Chainlink’s Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP), which is widely considered a more secure industry standard for transferring data and assets between different blockchains.
Legal Standoff
The Lazarus Group is suspected to be behind the April 18 attack. The exploiters used the stolen rsETH as collateral on Aave to borrow WETH, saddling the protocol with roughly $190 million in bad debt. Aave responded by spearheading "DeFi United," an industry-wide initiative that raised over $300 million in ETH to stabilize the sector.
However, a $72 million portion of the recovered funds remains in a legal tug-of-war. Although the Arbitrum community approved transferring these assets to the restitution fund, a U.S. court intervened. Plaintiffs from years-old terrorism judgments against North Korea have filed orders to claim the frozen ETH as compensation, leaving the transfer in limbo.
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