DAO Hacker Identified?
Laura Shin’s new book, The Cryptopians, reveals some interesting new details about the famed 2016 DAO hack, including the identity of the man she believes is responsible for the massive theft.
To mark the release of her new book, The Cryptopians, author Laura Shin dropped a bombshell about the famed DAO hack that resulted in the Ethereum hard fork, and the split between Ethereum and Ethereum Classic. Shin, a well-known journalist with extensive experience covering crypto, identifies the hacker as Toby Hoenisch, an Austrian programmer and the CEO of ICO-era project TenX. The reveal comes years after the 2016 hack which saw approximately $11 billion in Ether get stolen. Also of note is the information provided by Shin and her fellow investigators with respect to how the funds were moved and ultimately traced. According to Shin’s account, the hacker moved the funds from ETC to Shapeshift.io, a then non-KYC service to swap coins. The ETC was swapped for BTC, which was then mixed using Wasabi Wallet’s coinjoin feature. The mixed funds were then sent to four different exchanges, converted to GRIN, and then withdrawn to the user’s own node.
The reveal has some pretty stark implications. First, the de-anonymization of coins mixed with coinjoin is certainly disconcerting to some users who have been relying on the function to provide some measure of anonymity with respect to their coins. This quote from the book is particularly striking:
“Using a capability that is being disclosed here for the first time, Chainalysis de-mixed the Wasabi transactions and tracked their output to four exchanges”
In emails to Shin, Hoenisch has denied the accusations, writing, “Your statement and conclusion is factually inaccurate.” According to Shin, Hoenisch also offered to provide some details which would refute her conclusions, but according to the journalist, this information was never provided and follow-up emails went unanswered.
This bombshell news will certainly help book sales, but it remains unclear what if any action relevant law enforcement agencies might take with respect to this information. The original article in Forbes has some good information on what may have motivated the hack, as well as how Shin was able to track down Hoenisch and develop confidence in his being the individual responsible. It will be fascinating to see any public response from Hoenisch, as well as how law enforcement chooses to respond to the now published allegations.
