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<a href="https://www.thestreet.com/crypto/tag/chainlink" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Chainlink </a>Chief Business Officer Johann Eid says the recent wave of crypto exploits is exposing critical weaknesses in decentralized finance infrastructure just as institutions begin moving deeper into blockchain technology.
In an interview with TheStreet <a href="https://roundtable.io/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Roundtable</a>’s <a href="https://www.thestreet.com/crypto/author/alp-gasimov" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Alp Gasimov</a>, Eid described 2026 as a pivotal year for crypto, arguing that the industry is approaching large-scale institutional adoption through tokenization while simultaneously being forced to confront long-standing security problems.
<blockquote>
 “We've never been closer to actually getting to our end state, which is tokenizing the world,” Eid said.
</blockquote>
According to Eid, institutions including <a href="https://www.thestreet.com/crypto/tag/ubs" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">UBS</a>, DTCC, <a href="https://www.thestreet.com/crypto/tag/nasdaq" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Nasdaq </a>and <a href="https://www.thestreet.com/crypto/tag/nyse" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">NYSE </a>are actively exploring blockchain infrastructure and tokenized financial products. He said the industry is now entering a phase where crypto systems must meet institutional-grade security standards.
<blockquote>
 “I think that's why right now security has to be upped in many areas,” he said.
</blockquote>
<a href="https://www.thestreet.com/crypto/policy/sec-sees-crypto-as-economic-growth-engine" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Related: Exclusive: SEC sees crypto as 'economic growth engine' says Chainlink co-founder</a>
<h2 id="layerzero-exploit-exposed-bridge-risks">LayerZero exploit exposed bridge risks</h2>
The discussion centered on the recent LayerZero and <a href="https://www.thestreet.com/crypto/markets/major-defi-hack-becomes-the-largest-of-2026-yet" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">KelpDAO</a> exploit, which Eid said exposed major weaknesses in bridge infrastructure.
“The way this bridge was built, it would allow one signer to be able to verify the transactions,” Eid said. “So when the signer was hacked, all the money was lost.”
Eid explained that the interconnected nature of <a href="https://www.thestreet.com/crypto/tag/defi" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">DeFi</a> allows vulnerabilities to spread rapidly once compromised assets interact with lending protocols and liquidity systems.
<blockquote>
 “Money Lego means that once an asset fails, everything that's built around it also fails,” he said.
</blockquote>
He argued that decentralization remains one of the industry’s strongest defences against large-scale hacks.
“What decentralization means basically is you can't hack hundreds of millions of dollars by hacking just one single system or one single player,” Eid said.
<h3 id="trending-on-thestreet-roundtable">Trending on TheStreet Roundtable:</h3>
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</ul>
<h2 id="chainlink-ccip-sees-migration-surge">Chainlink CCIP sees migration surge</h2>
Following the exploit, Eid said several projects began migrating toward Chainlink’s Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol, known as CCIP.
He explained that CCIP was designed around higher decentralization thresholds than many competing bridge systems.
“On CCIP, the minimum security threshold is 16 node operators,” Eid said.
According to Eid, roughly $4 billion migrated into CCIP-connected infrastructure in the weeks following the exploit.
He also named <a href="https://www.thestreet.com/crypto/tag/coinbase" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Coinbase</a>, <a href="https://www.thestreet.com/crypto/tag/kraken" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Kraken</a>, <a href="https://www.thestreet.com/crypto/tag/kraken" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Lido</a>, <a href="https://www.thestreet.com/crypto/tag/maple-finance" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Maple Finance</a>, <a href="https://www.thestreet.com/crypto/tag/wlfi" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">World Liberty Financial</a> and <a href="https://www.thestreet.com/crypto/tag/usd1" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">USD1 </a>among projects currently using the protocol.
“We have around, if you combine the value secured by CCIP, around $60 to $70 billion in assets currently sitting secured by CCIP's cross-chain,” Eid said.
<h2 id="chainlink-pushes-security-by-default">Chainlink pushes ‘security by default’</h2>
Eid said blockchain developers should be able to focus on building applications rather than managing complex bridge security systems themselves.
“If you want the next big fintech apps to be built onchain, the developers building these apps shouldn't have to spend 50% of their time worrying about security,” he said.
He compared CCIP’s role in interoperability to Chainlink’s earlier expansion across oracle infrastructure, which secures pricing data for much of the DeFi sector.
“There will be a direct correlation between Chainlink products and Chainlink adoption and security within the space,” Eid said.
<a href="https://www.thestreet.com/crypto/markets/why-chainlink-could-be-the-next-big-winner-in-cryptos-rally" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Related: Why Chainlink could be the next big winner in crypto's rally</a>

Chainlink executive says $4B moved to CCIP after major crypto exploit

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