Solv Protocol drops LayerZero for Chainlink CCIP, second major exit after KelpDAO exploit

Solv Protocol has announced that it is migrating its entire $700 million tokenized Bitcoin portfolio from LayerZero to Chainlink’s Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP). This makes it the second major protocol to leave LayerZero’s bridging infrastructure following the controversy that surrounded its role in the $292 million KelpDAO exploit.

Solv’s decision comes just two days after KelpDAO announced its own migration away from LayerZero while also accusing the platform of approving the single-verifier bridge configuration that enabled the April 18 hack. 

LayerZero founder Bryan Pellegrino called those claims “completely untrue”; however, that has not been enough to stop defections from his platform.

Protocols are leaving LayerZero

KelpDAO was the first to confirm its migration to Chainlink CCIP on May 5, while also publishing Telegram screenshots it says show a LayerZero team member writing “No problem on using defaults either” during discussions about Kelp’s bridge configuration. 

Kelp said those exchanges spanned eight discussions over 2.5 years without objection from LayerZero personnel.

Pellegrino pushed back, writing on X that Kelp “deployed multiDVN and then manually downgraded to a 1/1” verifier setup. A 1-of-1 DVN (Decentralized Verifier Network) configuration means a single verification signature can authorize cross-chain token transfers, removing the redundancy that multi-DVN provides.

Solv’s announcement did not reference the KelpDAO dispute directly but cited “recent cross-chain hacks observed in the industry” and a “full updated security review on all cross-chain interoperability solutions” as the basis for its decision to migrate.

What Solv is moving

Solv Protocol manages over $611 million in total value locked across Bitcoin, Ethereum, BSC, and several other chains, according to DefiLlama. The protocol is deprecating LayerZero bridging support for SolvBTC and xSolvBTC on Corn, Berachain, Rootstock, and TAC to standardize on CCIP across all supported chains.

“Security is the foundation of everything we build at Solv, and our migration to Chainlink CCIP reinforces that commitment at the highest level,” Will Wang, Solv’s chief technology officer, said in the announcement.

Johann Eid, chief business officer at Chainlink Labs, said in the same post that Solv’s migration “reflects a broader shift across the DeFi industry of leading protocols adopting Chainlink to deliver the highest level of security required to bring the next billion users on-chain.”

Why protocols are leaving LayerZero 

The April 18 attack drained 116,500 rsETH from Kelp’s LayerZero-powered bridge, which is around 18% of the liquid restaked tokens in circulation.

At the time of the exploit, 47% of active LayerZero OApp contracts used a 1-of-1 DVN setup; however, the platform has since banned that configuration and is pushing migrations across its application base.

The ripple effect of that fallout extended to Aave, which saw its total value locked (TVL) dip by over $13 billion within days, with bad debt exposure estimated at $177 million before recovery efforts began.

Protocols are replacing LayerZero’s bridge with CCIP

CCIP’s architecture runs three distinct oracle networks per lane, as opposed to three nodes inside one network, according to Sergey Nazarov, the founder of Chainlink.

It also has a separate risk management network that was built by a different team in a different programming language. Therefore, compromising one verification path is not enough, as it does not give an attacker access to the others.

Based on an earlier report, CCIP has not disclosed a value-loss incident since launch.

LayerZero pledged 10,000 ETH to the DeFi United recovery fund that was meant to make users affected by the exploit whole. Arbitrum’s Security Council froze 30,766 ETH from the attacker’s wallets, though the legal status of those funds remains contested after US claimants with terrorism-related judgments against North Korea moved to attach them. Aave has taken legal steps to get the funds released.

KelpDAO’s accusation is not helping LayerZero’s credibility, and the situation just took another negative turn as two of its higher-profile integrators have left for the same competitor within a week. 

DefiLlama data shows LayerZero generated $197,000 in fees over the past 30 days, a figure that could compress further as protocols depart. Its token currently trades at $1.48, a 1.6% drop over the past 24 hours.