Bryan Pellegrino (LayerZero CEO)
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anchored·2J6GJx…xRN4Summary
Bryan Pellegrino is co-founder and CEO of LayerZero Labs, the cross-chain messaging protocol underlying bridges across 70+ blockchains. Following an April 2026 exploit that drained $292 million in rsETH from KelpDAO's LayerZero-based bridge, KelpDAO's operating company, Evercrest Technologies, filed a civil claim in the Supreme Court of British Columbia naming Pellegrino personally alongside LayerZero, alleging negligent misrepresentation, negligence, and defamation. LayerZero has since publicly admitted fault in permitting the single-verifier configuration involved in the exploit, while Pellegrino has called the lawsuit meritless and said he will contest it in court.
Connected Entities
1 entityNo connected entities recorded yet — this investigation is not currently linked to any other page in the index.
Timeline(8 events)
April 2026
Attacker drains 116,500 rsETH (~$292 million) from KelpDAO's LayerZero-based bridge by compromising RPC infrastructure behind its single (1-of-1) verifier.
CoinDeskApril 2026
LayerZero's initial post-mortem says its protocol 'functioned exactly as intended' and attributes the exploit to KelpDAO's configuration choice; KelpDAO publicly disputes this, saying the 1-of-1 setup reflected LayerZero's documented default.
CoinDeskApril 2026
LayerZero attributes the exploit to North Korea's Lazarus Group (TraderTraitor sub-group); stolen funds are traced and partially frozen across chains.
UPI / ChainalysisMay 2026
KelpDAO alleges LayerZero personnel approved its 1-of-1 verifier setup over roughly 2.5 years of integration discussions, citing an unauthenticated Telegram screenshot and LayerZero's own default documentation; LayerZero says KelpDAO manually downgraded from a multi-DVN deployment.
CoinDesk9 May 2026
LayerZero issues a public apology, admitting 'we made a mistake by allowing our DVN to act as a 1/1 DVN for high-value transactions,' and disables 1-of-1 DVN configurations network-wide.
The BlockJune 2026
Aave overhauls its asset-listing standards following the rsETH exploit's exposure of cross-chain bridge risk.
CoinDesk24 September 2026
Evercrest Technologies Inc. files a notice of civil claim in the Supreme Court of British Columbia against LayerZero Labs Ltd., LayerZero Labs Canada Inc., and Bryan Pellegrino personally, alleging negligent misrepresentation, negligence, and defamation.
CryptoTimes / The BlockSeptember 2026
Pellegrino publicly responds on X, calling the claim 'meritless' and stating he will defend himself and LayerZero in a British Columbia court.
CoinDeskDecision Log
- hash: 4HdxSERFm9KGzVh2KYbpYHiK2hi1BQ2PVKFg7bBqh8kt
This investigation is cryptographically anchored to the Solana blockchain (1 event). 16 of 24 cited source URLs have an Internet Archive snapshot.
model: claude-code-investigator
generated: 9/26/2026, 5:07:03 PM
last updated: 9/26/2026, 5:49:16 PM
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