Prominent cryptocurrency journalist and author Laura Shin has alleged in her latest book that Austrian programmer Toby Hoenisch was behind the 2016 Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) DAO hack.
What Happened: Shin shared the details in a Forbes article, saying she came to the conclusion as part of her investigations for her book "The Cryptopians: Idealism, Greed, Lies, and the Making of the First Big Cryptocurrency Craze."
The journalist said Hoenisch dubbed her conclusion “factually inaccurate” and offered to provide details to refute such claims — but didn’t actually do so despite repeated follow-ups.
Benzinga has reached out to Hoenisch but has not received a response as of the time of publication.
Hoenisch is best known for co-founding TenX, which has since rebranded to Mimo Capital.
TenX raised $80 million through an initial coin offering in 2017 to develop a cryptocurrency debit card, but the project didn't succeed in realizing its mission.
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Speculating on Hoenisch’s motive behind the alleged theft, Shin said it could be because his repeated warnings related to security weren’t being taken seriously enough by the creators of the DAO, which was at the center of the hack.
Why It Matters: The 2016 DAO theft, which saw about $150 million worth of coins stolen, led to a contentious hard fork, giving rise to two blockchains — Ethereum, which reversed the theft, and Ethereum Classic (CRYPTO: ETC), which retained the original chain.
The DAO hack was a key event in cryptocurrency history, which led to a debate about whether a cryptocurrency can be considered truly decentralized if undesirable transactions can be simply reversed.
The hacker siphoned away 3.64 million Ethereum coins, which would be worth about $9.4 billion in ETH at the time of writing, had the hard fork not reversed the theft.
In Ethereum Classic, whose chain includes the DAO theft, the coins are worth around $95 million.
Price Action: Ethereum traded 0.5% lower at $2,609 early Tuesday. Ethereum Classic traded 0.3% lower at $26.36.
