Summary
zkLend was a decentralized money-market lending protocol built on Starknet (Ethereum Layer 2), founded in 2022 by Brian Fu and Jane Ma and backed by Delphi Digital, Three Arrows Capital, and StarkWare. On February 11–12, 2025, the protocol suffered a critical flash-loan exploit that drained approximately $9.57 million in user funds through manipulation of the lending_accumulator variable and precision-loss rounding errors. The protocol permanently ceased operations in June 2025, allocating a $200,000 treasury remnant to a user recovery fund — leaving the vast majority of affected users uncompensated.
Connected Entities
1 entities- + 1 more
Timeline(12 events)
2022-02-01
zkLend founded by Brian Fu and Jane Ma
2022-03-29
zkLend raises $5 million seed round led by Delphi Digital, with Three Arrows Capital, StarkWare, Alameda Research, and others participating
2022-07-01
zkLend testnet opens
2023-07-25
EraLend hack occurs (~$2.76 million loss); SlowMist later alleges the same attacker is responsible for the subsequent zkLend exploit
2023-10-19
zkLend officially launches on Starknet mainnet with Artemis and Apollo environments
2025-02-11
zkLend exploit begins; attacker manipulates wstETH market lending_accumulator via flash loans and rounding errors, draining approximately $9.57 million in ETH, USDC, STRK, and USDT
2025-02-12
zkLend suspends all withdrawals; publicly discloses exploit and offers 10% white hat bounty (~3,300 ETH) with February 14 deadline
2025-02-14
Attacker ignores white hat bounty deadline; funds not returned
2025-02-14
Stolen funds bridged to Ethereum; attacker attempts Railgun laundering — rejected by Railgun compliance policies, funds returned to attacker address
2025-03-05
zkLend opens Recovery Portal for affected users; compensation plan announced including ~82,818 recovery NFTs
2025-03-31
Attacker posts on-chain message to zkLend admitting to losing 2,930 ETH (~$5.4 million) to a fake Tornado Cash phishing site (tornadoeth.cash) while attempting to launder funds
2025-06-25
zkLend announces permanent shutdown of operations; cites hack fallout and ZEND token delistings from Bybit and KuCoin; allocates remaining $200,000 treasury to user recovery fund
Decision Log
- hash: 5uQVG3QykBYicCqYxRy5oLdCuFCBsEjgaKvM4VdqFvMz
This investigation is cryptographically anchored to the Solana blockchain and source URLs are archived via the Internet Archive.
model: claude-sonnet-4-6
generated: 5/4/2026, 2:54:25 AM
last updated: 5/28/2026, 1:44:33 AM
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