Kraken Switches from LayerZero to Chainlink after Kelp DAO Hack

Crypto exchange Kraken announced Thursday that it had changed its cross-chain provider from LayerZero to Chainlink’s Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol, joining a number of protocols that have made the move following the Kelp DAO exploit in April.

Kraken said it is deprecating its existing cross-chain provider and migrating to Chainlink CCIP as its exclusive cross-chain infrastructure to secure Kraken Wrapped Bitcoin (kBTC) and all future wrapped tokens.

The company added that it chose Chainlink CCIP because it “offers enterprise-grade infrastructure with strict security and risk management requirements.” These include certifications, secure-by-default design, 16 independent nodes and native rate limits.

LayerZero has been under scrutiny since the Kelp DAO exploit in April, in which about $292 million in liquid restaking tokens were stolen by actors suspected to be linked to North Korea’s Lazarus Group.

LayerZero issued an “overdue apology” on May 9, saying that it had done a “terrible job on comms over the past three weeks.”

It admitted that its internal RPCs (remote procedure calls) were attacked and had their “source of truth poisoned” while its external RPC providers were simultaneously hit with a denial of service attack, but blamed Kelp’s configuration as a direct consequence of their single-DVN (Decentralized Verifier Network) setup.

LayerZero confirmed that no other application had been affected, and more than $9 billion in bridged assets have been moved using the protocol since April 19.

Other protocols migrate away from LayerZero

Kraken is not alone in making the switch. Kelp DAO stated that it is also in the process of migrating to Chainlink’s CCIP, and that it had burned the hacker’s 117,132 rsETH as part of the recovery process this week. 

Related: Kelp DAO eyes reopening withdrawals after rsETH burn

Solv Protocol announced on May 7 that it was migrating from LayerZero to CCIP as its official cross-chain infrastructure for $700 million in tokenized Bitcoin.

Meanwhile, onchain reinsurance protocol Re announced on May 8 that it was migrating its $475 million in total value locked from LayerZero to the Chainlink protocol. 

More than $3 billion in TVL has been migrated to CCIP since the Kelp hack, while numerous protocols have suspended bridging using LayerZero, according to MEXC.

The world’s largest Ethereum liquid staking protocol, Lido, also uses CCIP. “Chainlink’s defense-in-depth model acts as the definitive standard for cross-chain interoperability,” it explained in a blog post on Thursday. 

CCIP and LayerZero comparison. Source: Lido 

No reaction in token prices

There was no reaction in prices for Chainlink’s native token, LINK, which remains at a bear market low of around $10, down 80% from its 2021 peak. 

However, LayerZero’s native token ZRO has declined over 30% since the April hack and is down more than 80% from its 2024 all-time high, according to CoinGecko. 

Cointelegraph reached out to LayerZero for comment but did not receive an immediate response. 

Magazine: eToro founder timed Bitcoin top perfectly due to belief in 4 year cycles