DeFi TVL Plummets Across Top Chains After KelpDAO Hack

Ethereum’s Total Value Locked dropped nearly 11% in 24 hours while Bitcoin, Tron and BSC were not as badly affected.

The fallout from the $293 million KelpDAO exploit over the weekend has spread across the DeFi ecosystem, with Total Value Locked (TVL) across several chains dropping significantly in the last 24 hours.

According to data from on-chain analytics platform DeFiLlama, at least 126 of the networks it tracks were in the red, with CosmoHub the hardest hit, having lost more than 1,500% of its TVL in that period.

A Broad-Based Retreat Across Major Chains

Pseudonymous analyst Vet brought attention to the decline, writing in a post on X that TVL was going down on all the top 20 DeFi chains. “Money is exiting,” they noted, adding that people were “repricing the risk/reward.”

Indeed, when CryptoPotato checked the data, we found that the pullback was widespread, although the scale varied. For example, Ethereum, the largest DeFi chain with more than 1,700 protocols, posted a 24-hour TVL dip of nearly 11%. Its nearest rival, Solana, fared relatively better, going down by just over 4% in the last day, although the change was more noticeable across one month, at 19.06%.

Arbitrum, Base, and Avalanche also saw their TVL dip by 9.97%, 5.76%, and 6.61%, respectively, while Bitcoin, Tron, and BSC were the least affected among the top ten chains by TVL, with none of them taking a hit bigger than 1.6%. Meanwhile, in that group, Hyperliquid was the worst hit, shedding more than 12% of the total value of assets it held and taking its dollar worth to $1.44 billion.

Outside the top 10, the losses were sharper, with Mantle, which DeFiLlama co-founder 0xngmi flagged as one of those most exposed to bad debt after the hack, alongside Base and Arbitrum, down almost 42%. Others that were heavily hit included Taiko, which lost 22% of its TVL; Monad, which went down 13.21% in 24 hours; and Berachain, which dipped by over 17%.

Other Chains Made Gains

The flight from risk did not reach every corner, though, with some smaller chains posting gains. One of them, Q Protocol, jumped 477% in 24 hours, with Oasys and Shibarium also in the green, gaining 90.6% and 85%, respectively.

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The KelpDAO hack is the worst security breach in the DeFi space so far this year. Reports say that the liquid restaking protocol lost over $293 million after an attacker took advantage of its bridge contract. LayerZero has since said that the Lazarus Group’s TraderTraitor unit was behind the attack.