Laura Shin, the host of weekly crypto podcast Unchained, discusses how she discovered the identity of the individual that she alleges hacked the DAO in 2016. The DAO was the first large-scale attempt to decentralize venture capital. Run automatically and by consensus, it pooled its members’ crypto holdings with the intent to fund exciting new projects on the Ethereum chain —of which there were many. It became the largest crowdfunding exercise in history. Then somebody stole all the money. Whoever used coding tricks to abscond with tens of millions of investors’ dollars, almost destroying Ethereum in the process, never got caught by authorities and evaded suspicion among the crypto community in which he continued to participate -until Shin figured it out. She discusses the topic with NYFWA board member William Freedman.
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