Bryan Pellegrino
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anchored·jdPLz3…YCXVSummary
Bryan Pellegrino is the co-founder and CEO of LayerZero Labs, a cross-chain interoperability protocol that raised $263 million at a $3 billion valuation from investors including Sequoia Capital, a16z, and others. In April 2026, the largest single DeFi exploit of the year occurred on a LayerZero-powered bridge used by KelpDAO, resulting in approximately $292 million in losses; LayerZero subsequently issued a public apology and admitted fault in allowing a single-verifier configuration. On September 25, 2026, Evercrest Technologies (the developer behind KelpDAO) filed a civil claim in the Supreme Court of British Columbia naming Pellegrino personally as a defendant alongside LayerZero Labs, alleging negligent misrepresentation and defamation; the lawsuit is at the notice-of-claim stage and no court has made any finding of liability.
Connected Entities
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Timeline(14 events)
1 February 2021
Bryan Pellegrino co-founds LayerZero Labs with Caleb Banister and Ryan Zarick.
Crunchbase / Sequoia Capital30 March 2022
LayerZero Labs closes a $135 million Series A+ round co-led by a16z, Sequoia, and FTX Ventures at a $1 billion valuation.
CoinDesk1 February 2024
According to Evercrest's civil claim, LayerZero reviewed and described KelpDAO's 1-of-1 DVN configuration as 'good' with 'no problem.' This date is drawn from the civil filing and has not been independently verified; it is disputed by LayerZero.
Decrypt / Unchained (reporting on civil claim)1 May 2024
LayerZero launches ZRO token airdrop with anti-sybil process; approximately 803,093 addresses flagged as potential sybils.
The Block6 March 2026
According to LayerZero's incident report, a threat actor (attributed to North Korea's TraderTraitor group) socially engineered a LayerZero developer to install malware, gaining access to internal RPC infrastructure.
LayerZero Labs KelpDAO Incident Report / CoinDesk18 April 2026
KelpDAO rsETH bridge exploited for approximately $292 million. The attacker forged a cross-chain message using compromised LayerZero RPC nodes, exploiting a 1-of-1 DVN configuration. LayerZero attributes the attack to TraderTraitor (Lazarus Group).
CoinDesk19 April 2026
LayerZero publishes incident statement claiming KelpDAO's setup 'directly contradicts the multi-DVN redundancy model' it had 'consistently recommended.' Pellegrino posts that 'nobody should be relying on sole DVN.' KelpDAO disputes these characterizations.
CoinDesk / LayerZero20 April 2026
KelpDAO publicly disputes LayerZero's characterization and claims LayerZero's default settings caused the disaster.
CoinDesk7 May 2026
Solv Protocol announces it is moving approximately $700 million in tokenized bitcoin infrastructure from LayerZero to Chainlink CCIP.
CoinDesk9 May 2026
LayerZero publicly states it 'made a mistake by allowing its DVN to act as a 1/1 DVN for high-value transactions,' reversing its earlier positioning and apologizing for its initial response.
CoinDesk / The Block14 May 2026
Kraken announces it will replace LayerZero with Chainlink for kBTC and future wrapped assets.
CoinDesk9 July 2026
CoinDesk reports over $7.2 billion in total announced migrations from LayerZero to Chainlink CCIP.
CoinDesk25 September 2026
Evercrest Technologies files a notice of civil claim in the Supreme Court of British Columbia against LayerZero Labs Ltd., LayerZero Labs Canada Inc., and Bryan Pellegrino personally, alleging negligent misrepresentation, negligence, and defamation. Pellegrino denies the allegations on X. No court finding has been made.
CoinDesk / Decrypt / UnchainedDecision Log
- hash: F5X9LS7P1QDvLGNpbFrnSMUttxHjJyyyodvhbyoDYFSM
This investigation is cryptographically anchored to the Solana blockchain (1 event). 16 of 20 cited source URLs have an Internet Archive snapshot.
model: claude-sonnet-4-6
generated: 9/26/2026, 5:09:27 PM
last updated: 9/26/2026, 5:49:16 PM
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