Tornado Cash Hack: Unusual Return to Governance

Blockchain is a technology that never ceases to surprise, both in terms of its potential and its challenges. Latest example: the case of Tornado Cash. After a disturbing hack, an unexpected proposal from the attacker led to an unexpected reclaim of governance control of the platform by token holders.

A thunderclap in the Tornado Cash ecosystem

Despite the shadow of the ban, Tornado Cash remains in the limelight. May 26, a proposal aimed at restoring governance control to the original tokenholders of Tornado Cash has been approved. In fact, she collected a total of 517,000 votes in favour, with no opposition.

This resolution quickly closes a governance takeover that fortunately did not impact the protocol itself. However, it led to the theft of some governance tokens.

Indeed, the attacker managed to orchestrate a takeover of the protocol governance system. He pushed through a malicious proposal that granted him 1.2 million votes. With this substantial voting power, he also pushed through additional proposals, eventually taking control of previously invested governance tokens.

An unlikely turnaround

Just hours after the hack, the attacker surprisingly contacted the Tornado Cash community. He presented a proposal to restore governance control.

This move sparked curiosity and prompted a closer look at the attacker’s intentions and motives. As reported by Martin Lee on Twitterthe attacker managed to steal 483,000 Tornado Cash (TORN) tokens, which he then largely converted into 485 Ether, worth approximately $890,000.

In the wake of these events, the governance of Tornado Cash seems to be on the way to recovery. These circumstances are acutely reminiscent of Vitalik Buterin’s recent warnings about Ethereum’s overuse of consensus. This situation highlights the primacy of vigilance and caution in the application of blockchain technologies. Beyond these challenges, the central role that the community can play in addressing these issues is clear. Currently, all eyes are on Tornado Cash, as speculation is made about the impact of these events on the future of the platform.