Funds Stolen From the DAO One Year Ago Would be Worth $1.35bn Today

An important milestone has occurred over the past 24 hours. It is the one-year anniversary of the infamous implosion of The DAO. As most people will recall, this project raised over $125m via crowdfunding and promptly saw funds being drained due to a smart contract bug. This event is now one year behind us, and it is important to look back at this defining moment in Ethereum history.

The DAO Heist – One Year Later

One year ago, things were looking rather problematic for the Ethereum ecosystem. Its powerful technology allows for some innovative business models, including decentralized autonomous organizations. One project, known as The DAO, decided to use this business model to change the world as we know it. The DAO hosted a massive ICO, and raised quite a lot of money in the process. In fact, it became the world’s largest crowdfunding project to date.

Unfortunately, The DAO also attracted a lot of negative attention. It did not take all that long for assailants to discover a major flaw in the project’s smart contract code. As a result, individuals were able to drain money from The DAO, which became a rather pressing problem. Several attempts to drain funds were successful, and it became evident The DAO was no longer sustainable. In fact, the project ceased to exist some time ago. All native DAO tokens were ultimately converted back into Ethereum.

During these hacking attempts, around $60m worth of Ether was eventually stolen from The DAO. Such a high amount posed a major problem for investors, and a lot of people wanted to find a solution. Eventually, that solution materialized in the Ethereum hard fork, which also spawned Ethereum Classic. Not everyone agreed with invalidating transactions associated with The DAO funds being drained, and a part of the network split itself off from the rest.

Fast forward to today, and both Ethereum and Ethereum Classic are doing extremely well. The value of both currencies has increased quite spectacularly. In fact, the amount of money stolen from The DAO would be worth $1.35bn right now. Compared to the $60m a year ago, this shows things have been evolving nicely for Ethereum despite that major setback a year ago. The DAO was an unfortunate event in history for sure, but it has not destroyed Ethereum’s chances of success, unlike what a lot of people expected.

Although a lot of people still feel The DAO hard fork should have never happened, one cannot deny Ethereum has grown spectacularly over the past few months. New and innovative concepts still make use of the Ethereum blockchain and all of the technology it has to offer. Cryptocurrency ICOs are taking place on a weekly basis, and a lot of funds is being raised in the process.

The bigger question is what lies ahead for Ethereum. The Ethereum Enterprise Alliance is making a lot of media headlines right now. No one will ever forget The DAO and how quickly things can go from excitement to sheer terror. However, issues can always be resolved, even though not everyone may agree with the methods of doing so. The whole incident also spawned one infamous comic people will never forget, as can be seen below.

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