KelpDAO Loses $280 Million in DeFi Wallet Drain Across Ethereum, Arbitrum
KelpDAO has reportedly misplaced greater than $280 million after attackers drained positions throughout a number of Decentralized Finance (DeFi) protocols on Ethereum and Arbitrum.
On-chain investigator ZachXBT flagged the incident, figuring out six attacker-controlled wallets actively transferring the stolen funds.
How the KelpDAO Attack Happened
Blockchain knowledge reveals the attacker wallets obtained preliminary funding by Tornado Cash, the privateness mixer, hours earlier than the theft started.
The wallets then interacted with DeFi protocols, executing token approvals and swaps by KyberSwap and KelpDAO earlier than changing all positions into ether (ETH).
“KelpDAO seems to have had $280M+ stolen one hour in the past on Ethereum and Arbitrum. The assault addresses have been funded through Tornado Cash,” ZachXBT wrote on Telegram.
Within roughly one hour, the attackers consolidated roughly 75,700 ETH, price round $178 million at current prices, right into a single wallet.
The remaining stolen worth consists of extra tokens and positions on Arbitrum. As of publication, no outflows from the consolidation pockets had been detected.
The sample suggests a private-key compromise moderately than a smart-contract exploit in any particular protocol.
The sufferer seems to have held vital DeFi exposure across both chains, and the attacker systematically withdrew and swapped these positions into uncooked ETH.
A Growing Pattern of Whale-Targeted Attacks
The incident follows a pointy rise in phishing and social engineering attacks focusing on high-value holders.
In January 2026 alone, a single phishing sufferer misplaced $284 million, accounting for over 70% of the month’s complete crypto theft losses.
If confirmed at $280 million, this might rank among the many largest particular person pockets compromises on document.
Security analysts are anticipated to publish deeper on-chain evaluation in the approaching hours.
KelpDAO has not publicly addressed the incident, and didn’t immeidately reply to BeInCrypto’s request for remark.
Elsewhere, experiences additionally point out that the Instagram account of Solana meme coin launchpad Pump.enjoyable has been compromised.
“Any posts comprised of the official pump enjoyable Instagram account shouldn’t be trusted. Ignore any and all posts made by the account till we now have secured the account,” the workforce wrote.
Nevertheless, Pump.enjoyable platforms stay operational and consumer funds are secure.
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