A cryptocurrency journalist and the host of the Unchained Podcast, Laura Shin, has claimed that she has been able to discover the identity of the person who has exploited more than 3.6 million Ether in 2016 from a Germany-based startup Slock.it’s The DAO (Decentralised Autonomous Organisation). As stated by Chainanalysis, this is another example where the evidence of exploitation is preserved on the blockchain forever.
In the Tuesday Bloomberg report, the journalist Shin has stated that she possessed extremely important evidence that links and holds the Mimo Capital Co-founder Toby Hoenisch responsible for the removal of more than 3.6 million Ether (ETH) from The DAO in June 2016, which was roughly US 50 million at that time. An anonymous hacker drained roughly one-third of The DAO’s ETH supply using an exploit. This unfortunate event forced the developers to hard fork the network and left the illegitimate funds in what we know as the Ethereum Classic blockchain (ETC).
Laura Shin conducted the research with Ethereum developer Alex Van de Sande, and Chainanalysis, the blockchain analytics firm, claimed that Toby Hoenisch was well aware of the illegal deed weeks before the actual exploit occurred on 17 June 2016. Ethereum developer Alex Van de Sande also said that the hacker used Shapeshift crypto exchange to convert Ether to Bitcoin. The researchers also said that the hacker used the Wasabi crypto wallet to mix the BTC hacked from The DAO, and four different central crypto exchange platforms have also been used to launder all the funds. Finally, they have used privacy-focused cryptocurrency Grin to add the “privacy touch”.
Chainanalysis claimed that it has been able to separate the crypto transactions, and the funds have been traced back to the exchanges. The tokens were deposited on the accounts held and managed by the co-founder of Mimo Capital. Van e Sande went on to say that he felt no pity for Toby if he actually is the guy who has done all these illegal activities, in that period of time, everyone who was related to the crypto industry saw the fall and fracture in their projects.
Shin’s allegations have been denied by Toby, and he said that Shin’s findings are actually inaccurate according to the facts. The community manager of Mimo Thomas Reinhardt on Tuesday has mentioned in Mimo’s Telegram handle that Toby has had no role in the “day-to-day” operations of the platform since the beginning of the company.
Reinhardt has further commented that the accusations are surprising for the community as well as for the company itself. Mimo Capital remains committed to providing its users with the safest and best Euro token DeFi platform for their users.
If the developers had not hard forked the Ethereum network, then the original price of the US 3.6 million ETH tokens would have increased to US 9 billion at the time of writing the article. But the currency price of ETC is roughly 10 percent of the ETH, and the funds that have been stolen are currently worth US 94 million.
Julia Shin further stated that the number of people who have used Wasabi wallets for illegal activities is feeling insecure right now. These people are wondering if blockchain forensics are going to catch up to them someday, even if they are currently using the latest crypto bewildering technology.
