LayerZero Labs
Last changed 2026-10-10 · Score recalculated — Rescored under Scoring v2, the published formula (avoid.net/scoring): 32 → 54. Problems weighed by who is responsible: concerns that are not fraud −17.2, incidents the subject suffered −10, problems around the subject, caused by others −2.9; legitimacy credit long-running +10; a recent unresolved incident −0.6. Version history →
Why this score
| Every page starts at | 65 |
| Concerns that are not fraud | -17.2 |
| Incidents it suffered (e.g. hacks) | -10 |
| Problems around it, caused by others | -2.9 |
| Long-running | +10 |
| Recent unresolved incident | -0.6 |
| Sum | 44 |
Score: 54/100 (kept between 0 and 100)
How scoring works →Summary
LayerZero Labs is the Vancouver-based company that develops and maintains the LayerZero cross-chain messaging protocol and the ZRO governance token. The company became the subject of significant controversy following the April 2026 $292 million KelpDAO bridge exploit, in which LayerZero's own infrastructure was compromised and its personnel had previously approved the single-verifier configuration that enabled the attack. LayerZero Labs formally admitted in May 2026 that it 'made a mistake,' after weeks of publicly attributing blame to KelpDAO — a reversal that triggered a broader ecosystem migration estimated at approximately $15 billion in assets moving to competing bridge infrastructure.
Connected Entities
13 entities · 59 linked investigations- KelpDAO Bridge Exploit (April 2026)→mentioned with→Mantle(65%)
- KelpDAO Bridge Exploit (April 2026)→mentioned with→Ethereum(80%)
- KelpDAO Bridge Exploit (April 2026)→mentioned with→Chainlink(60%)
- Mantle→mentioned with→Ethereum(80%)
- Optimism→mentioned with→Ethereum(80%)
- TraderTraitor / UNC4899→mentioned with→Ethereum(80%)
- KelpDAO / LayerZero Bridge Exploit (April 2026) — DPRK Lazarus→mentioned with→Chainlink(60%)
- KelpDAO / LayerZero Bridge Exploit (April 2026) — DPRK Lazarus→mentioned with→Ethereum(80%)
- KelpDAO / LayerZero Bridge Exploit (April 2026) — DPRK Lazarus→mentioned with→Mantle(65%)
- North Korea Lazarus Group — H1 2026 Systematic Crypto Theft Campaign→mentioned with→TraderTraitor / UNC4899(70%)
- + 40 more
3 submissions awaiting moderator review.
Timeline(13 events)
1 February 2021
LayerZero Labs co-founded by Bryan Pellegrino, Caleb Banister, and Ryan Zarick.
Crunchbase / Sequoia Capital profile1 June 2024
ZRO token launched with 'Proof of Donation' claiming mechanism; token drops 24% on launch day amid community backlash.
FXStreet10 February 2026
LayerZero Labs announces 'Zero' Layer 1 blockchain backed by Citadel Securities, DTCC, ICE, ARK Invest, and Google Cloud.
BusinessWire6 March 2026
Attacker socially engineers a LayerZero Labs developer, harvesting session keys and gaining access to LayerZero's internal RPC cloud environment. Compromised RPC nodes are seeded with poisoned data.
LayerZero Labs KelpDAO Incident Report PDF18 April 2026
$292 million KelpDAO rsETH bridge exploit occurs. Attacker uses poisoned LayerZero RPC nodes and the bridge's 1-of-1 DVN configuration to forge and validate a cross-chain message, releasing 116,500 rsETH.
CoinDesk20 April 2026
LayerZero Labs issues statement attributing the exploit to KelpDAO's application-level configuration choices, and attributes the attack to North Korea's Lazarus Group.
CoinDesk5 May 2026
KelpDAO publicly states that LayerZero personnel had approved KelpDAO's single-verifier configuration before the exploit.
CoinDesk7 May 2026
Solv Protocol announces it is moving approximately $700 million in tokenized bitcoin from LayerZero to Chainlink CCIP.
CoinDesk9 May 2026
LayerZero Labs formally admits it 'made a mistake,' acknowledging that its DVN should not have been permitted to act as a single verifier for high-value transactions. The company states: 'We own that.'
CoinDesk15 May 2026
Approximately $4 billion in assets across multiple protocols have migrated from LayerZero to Chainlink CCIP, including Lombard.
CoinDesk18 May 2026
LayerZero Labs publishes its formal KelpDAO incident report PDF detailing the technical timeline of the March–April 2026 breach.
LayerZero (official)4 August 2026
BitGo's decision to migrate WBTC ($7.4 billion) pushes publicly announced LayerZero-to-Chainlink migrations to nearly $15 billion.
CoinDesk18 August 2026
The state of Wyoming joins the migration, moving its stablecoin infrastructure away from LayerZero.
CoinDeskDecision Log
- slot 455365414 · hash 5UTzcWPivzcxfVaWzhp44g3pu1qxbNh6NDzNGHbXhCvr
- slot 447915572 · hash DKUyoQGqDMevD8QL59b9Aij1i2NuMmEyP1xdc8qys23z
This investigation is cryptographically anchored to the Solana blockchain (2 decisions). 21 of 21 cited source URLs have an Internet Archive snapshot.
model: claude-sonnet-4-6
generated: 9/17/2026, 11:04:22 PM
last updated: 10/10/2026, 6:45:40 PM
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