KelpDAO hath reportedly lost more than $280 million after malefactors drained positions across multiple Decentralized Finance (DeFi) protocols on Ethereum and Arbitrum.
On-chain investigator ZachXBT did flag the affair on April 18, identifying six attacker-controlled wallets actively moving the stolen plunder.
How the KelpDAO Attack Happened
In a manner most theatrical, the tale unfolds: the blockchain data show the attacker wallets received initial funding through Tornado Cash, that privacy mute, hours ere the theft commenced.
These wallets then conspired with DeFi protocols, performing token approvals and swaps via KyberSwap and KelpDAO before transmogrifying all positions into ether-verily, into ETH, that bland coin of the realm.
“KelpDAO appears to have had $280M+ stolen one hour ago on Ethereum and Arbitrum. The attack addresses were funded via Tornado Cash,” ZachXBT wrote on Telegram.
Within roughly one hour, the rascals consolidated approximately 75,700 ETH, worth around $178 million at current prices, into a single wallet.
The remaining value stolen includes additional tokens and positions on Arbitrum. As of publication, no outflows from the consolidated wallet had been detected.
The pattern suggests a private-key compromise rather than a rogue smart-contract breach of a single protocol.
The victim appears to have held significant DeFi exposure across both chains, and the attacker systematically withdrew and swapped those positions into raw ETH.
AAVE MULTISIG GUARDIAN FREEZES RSETH ON LENDING MARKETS: ONCHAIN
– Aggr News (@AggrNews) April 18, 2026
A Growing Pattern of Whale-Targeted Attacks
The incident follows a sharp rise in phishing and social-engineering attacks aimed at high-value holders.
In January 2026 alone, a single phishing victim lost $284 million, accounting for over 70% of the month’s total crypto theft losses.
If confirmed at $280 million, this would rank among the largest individual wallet compromises on record.
Security analysts are expected to publish deeper on-chain analysis in the coming hours.
Elsewhere, reports also indicate that the Instagram account of Pump.fun-the Solana meme-coin launchpad-has been compromised.
“Any posts made from the official pump fun Instagram account should not be trusted. Ignore any and all posts made by the account until we have secured the account,” the team wrote.
Nevertheless, Pump.fun platforms remain operational and user funds are safe.
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2026-04-18 22:26