Kelp DAO exploiter launders $80M ETH via THORChain, volume spikes 11x

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Kelp DAO exploiter launders ~$80M in ETH via THORChain; swaps spike to $394M

The Kelp DAO exploit wallet routed about $80M through THORChain. ZachXBT traced early flows and flagged Telegram laundering paths.

THORChain’s 24h swap volume hit $394M in late April 2026. That’s ~11× its usual sub‑$35M run-rate, per Coinspeaker reporting on the episode.

- The attacker drained 116,500 rsETH on April 19 from Kelp DAO’s LayerZero rsETH bridge, then swapped back to ETH according to Coinspeaker.
- Arkham-tracked flows show 75,700 ETH moved on April 22 across three transactions, including 25,000 ETH to one new wallet and 50,700 ETH to another per the same report.
- ZachXBT identified roughly $1.5M moved in three THORChain transactions and another $78K via Umbra from his tracing.
- Arbitrum froze 30,766 ETH tied to the exploiter per Coinspeaker and Coin Bureau.

Funds were primarily swapped from ETH into Bitcoin via THORChain’s permissionless cross-chain liquidity.