Cross-chain messaging platform LayerZero is confronting serious operational security (OPSEC) allegations after on-chain evidence revealed that its production multisig keys were used to trade the McPepes memecoin on Uniswap. On May 8, 2026, screenshots from an internal discussion went viral on X, showing that three of the five signers of the 2-of-5 Gnosis Safe multisig—a setup designed to protect billions in user funds and control critical Omnichain Fungible Token (OFT) infrastructure—engaged in activities on decentralized exchanges instead of maintaining key isolation.
The exposed signer addresses include 0x1f5E377a3ADBe6f3289ADb6b21eae6427dfbb553, which swapped 0.198548073 ETH for roughly 1.73 million McPepes tokens via Uniswap V3 on March 1, 2023, well before the PEPE deployment schedule. Another signer, 0xBb6633c267951E938F9B6421E4F54aa5b2c19326, held about $12 million and staked on Stargate, while 0x6fC8342C448F9a8d541C17579EF7A14237b8d5aD supplied liquidity on Curve, PancakeSwap, and SpookySwap. The multisig lacked a timelock, and keys remained unrotated for years, meaning just two compromised signers could drain the entire wallet.
LayerZero CEO Bryan Pellegrino responded that the transactions were made by former multisig members who had already been removed, insisting the actions were “OFT testing” and not speculation. The community rejected this, noting that an ETH-to-memecoin Uniswap swap hardly constitutes operational testing. Zach Rynes, a well-known Chainlink community advocate, called the security practices “horrifying” and warned of supply-chain attack risks for protocols relying on LayerZero defaults.
The revelations came only hours after Solv Protocol announced it would migrate over $700 million in tokenized BTC (SolvBTC and xSolvBTC) from LayerZero to Chainlink’s CCIP, citing bridge security reviews and the recent Kelp DAO hack. No full audit of the former signers’ actions has been published by LayerZero, and the incident has sparked broader calls for transparency and improved OPSEC across the infrastructure sector.
