đŸThe DAO HackđŸ â When Ethereum Split in Two
Back in 2016, the Ethereum community was riding high. The DAOâshort for Decentralized Autonomous Organizationâwas one of the biggest experiments in crypto history. A community-run investment fund. No CEOs. No banks. Just code.
Investors poured over $150 million in ETH into it. It was revolutionary.
And then⊠disaster.
A hacker exploited a vulnerability in the DAO smart contract and drained around $60 million in ETH. The Ethereum network itself wasnât hackedâthe DAO contract was flawed. But that was enough to send shockwaves through the ecosystem.
Hereâs the problem: blockchains are immutable. You canât undo transactions. Unless⊠you fork the chain.
The Ethereum community split in two. One side created a new version of Ethereum ($ETH ) by reversing the hack. The other side refused, sticking to the original âcode is lawâ philosophyâthus creating Ethereum Classic (ETC).
What does this teach us?
Technology is one thing. Values are another.
You can have the smartest code in the world, but it wonât make the hard moral decisions for you.