- The Tornado Cash community gains back control through an unexpected proposal made by the protocol’s hijacker.
- The attacker was able to steal 483 worth of TORN, the protocol’s native tokens.
- The unexpected proposal by the hacker received 517,000 votes in favor and not a single opposition.
Tornado Cash has received 517,000 token votes favoring their new proposal with no opposition. The platform’s governance token holders will soon have control over operations on the protocol once again through an unexpected proposal put forward by the protocol’s attacker.
This new development in the situation will help the community regain authority and steer the protocol toward improved security measures and total recovery.
The proposal to restore control to the bonafide governance token holders of the protocol was passed successfully on May 26th, with the votes favoring it surpassing 500,000 and not a single one opposing the motion. This resulted in a swift end of a governance hijacking that fortunately had no impact on the protocol itself but led only to the theft of specific governance tokens.
The successful orchestration of a takeover of Tornado Cash’s governance system allowed the hijacker to maneuver a malicious proposal that garnered 1.2 million votes and took leverage of this significant number of votes. The attacker passed more proposals, ultimately leading to them gaining control of previously vested governance tokens.
They also went on to use these tactics to manipulate the governance structure of Tornado Cash, which resulted in a transfer of the platform’s authority in their favor.
In a surprising turn of events, just a few hours after the attacker hijacked the platform, they contacted the protocol’s community. They presented a proposal that was supposedly aimed at the restoration of governance control. This unexpected move came as a shock to many people in the community. It prompted their curiosity, prompting more scrutiny of the attacker’s intentions and the motivation behind their actions.
In a report by a data journalist —Martin Lee— from crypto analytics site Nansen, the hijacker was able to steal 483,000 worth of Tornado Cash (TORN) tokens and subsequently went on to swap them, converting a large majority of the stolen TORN into 485 Ether, which is worth approximately $890,000. This strategic move by the attacker left them with only 39,000 worth of TORN valued at around $160,000.
To obscure the origin of the stolen funds, a portion of the swapped ETH was smartly routed through tornado cash, giving added anonymity to the transaction.
Conclusion
Tornado Cash had previously been knee-deep in controversy when it was officially sanctioned by the United States treasury in August 2022, the sanctions stemming from allegations that the protocol had been used as a vessel for money laundering.
