Key Takeaways:
- A journalist has accused the former Crypto CEO responsible for hacking the Ethereum DAO.
- The CEO, Hoenisch, has denied the allegations.
- Details about the hack are expected from a newly launched book, “The Cryptopians: Idealism, Greed, Lies, and the Making of the First Big Cryptocurrency Craze.”
Today, Forbes has released a report sharing details about the suspected hacker of the 2016 DAO hack. The co-founder and CEO of crypto debit card company TenX, Toby Hoenisch, a 36-year-old programmer, has been accused of making the largest cryptocurrency hacks ever.
Journalist Laura Shin has brought this blame on Hoenisch. The former, along with blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis, conducted an investigation and traced the movement of the stolen funds. However, the accused has denied the allegations and said, “statement and conclusion are factually inaccurate.”
Shin thinks that the hacker took the Ethereum for Bitcoin and later sent the Bitcoin to a Wasabi Wallet, which is used to confuse Bitcoin transactions, and the process is called “mixing”. Chainalysis could successfully “de-mix” the muddled transactions and trace them to four different trades. Therefore, Shin suggests that someone swapped the Bitcoin for the privacy coin Grin, which was later removed to a non-custodial Grin hub called “grin.toby.ai.”
Interestingly, the name “toby.ai” has been used by Hoenisch on several online media accounts and was also among one of his email addresses. Shin further added that the IP address facilitating the node has also hosted another node named “TenX”, which is the name of Hoenisch’s company.
“As I noted earlier, after being sent a document laying out the evidence that he was the hacker and asking for comment for my book, Hoenisch wrote that my conclusion is ‘factually inaccurate”, Shin said. She suspects that Hoenisch knew about the DAO’s code and published blogs on possible hacks. Shin has done thorough research on the hack for her new launch named “The Cryptopians: Idealism, Greed, Lies, and the Making of the First Big Cryptocurrency Craze.”
