Kelp Restaking Exploit Drains $293M; Bitcoin ETFs Gain $996M

Kelp’s liquid restaking protocol was exploited on Saturday, draining $293 million after the bridge contract for its rsETH token was compromised, blockchain security firm Cyvers reported. Kelp froze rsETH contracts on its mainnet and several Layer-2 networks while teams work to contain the breach. DeFi lender Aave suspended rsETH markets on Aave V3 and V4. At least nine protocols with exposure to rsETH have halted activity or taken other steps to limit losses.

Restaking lets validators reuse staked assets to secure additional services and create tokenized claims such as rsETH. The attacker targeted the bridge that moves rsETH across networks, enabling withdrawals of funds tied to the bridged token. The incident follows other high-value hacks in April, including a separate breach of the Drift protocol that resulted in about $280 million stolen.

Spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds recorded $996 million in net inflows over the past week, the largest weekly intake since early January. Friday accounted for $663.9 million of the weekly total. Other movements included $411.5 million on Tuesday, $186 million on Wednesday, $26 million on Thursday, and a $291 million outflow on Monday. Total net assets held by spot Bitcoin ETFs rose above $101 billion and daily trading volumes approached $4.8 billion.

World, the company behind Worldcoin and led by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, said its “proof of human” stack will add Deep Face authentication to Zoom, provide identity verification for DocuSign, and expand World ID verification on Tinder for U.S. users. The company said verifying that an agent represents a real person will become more important as AI systems act on users’ behalf. After the announcement, Worldcoin’s token WLD fell about 13.4% to roughly $0.28 while the broader crypto market gained around 2.2%.

Industry participants paused trading and withdrawals where rsETH exposure exists while security teams investigate the exploit. Regulators and market observers are monitoring the series of protocol-level hacks and the rapid inflows into spot Bitcoin ETFs as separate developments affecting crypto markets this week.