TechFlow news, February 22 — Former Forbes journalist and host of "Unchained," Laura Shin, revealed on her latest podcast that she has identified the suspected hacker behind Ethereum's 2016 The DAO incident as Toby Hoenisch, a 36-year-old Austrian programmer and co-founder and CEO of TenX. The company raised $80 million in its 2017 initial coin offering to develop a cryptocurrency debit card, but the project ultimately failed. Its token market value, which once peaked at $535 million, has now dropped to just $11 million. Laura Shin primarily relied on data tracking of the suspect and blockchain analysis from Chainalysis to pinpoint TenX's node address located in Singapore.
On April 30, 2016, The DAO launched a token crowdfunding campaign on Ethereum. By May 28, it had raised 11.5 million ETH—worth over $150 million at the time—making it the largest crowdfunding campaign ever at that point. On June 17, a hacker exploited a vulnerability to siphon off 3.6 million ETH, about one-third of the total funds, to an anonymous address. This event ultimately led to the split of the Ethereum blockchain.
