A recent development in the Tornado Cash attack has taken an unexpected turn. The hacker, who managed to gain control over Tornado Cash, has proposed a solution that could potentially reverse the original exploit. Tornadosaurus-Hex, a community member, reported that the hacker posted a proposal to restore the state of governance, hinting at the possibility of executing it.
However, concerns have arisen within the community regarding the attacker’s true intentions. Some members believe that this move could be an attempt to manipulate the price of Tornado Cash’s native token, TORN.
0xdeadf4ce took to Twitter, cautioning that the recovery proposal might be a ploy to capitalize on the significant drop in TORN’s value caused by the initial attack. In a matter of hours, the token plummeted from $6.08 to a low of $3.57, marking a 41% decline. Although the price partially recovered to $4.73 by May 21, even a brief rebound could result in stolen cryptocurrency becoming more valuable.
While the recovery proposal’s true motives are still unclear, 0xdeadf4ce speculated that it might be an expensive but non-catastrophic lesson or simply an act of trolling. The outcome of the recovery proposal will be determined on May 26, shedding light on the hacker’s true intentions.
The Tornado Cash attack began on May 20 when the hacker manipulated the project’s governance by creating and voting for a proposal that granted sole control to themselves. This allowed the hacker to withdraw all locked votes and tokens from Tornado Cash’s governance contract. Although the hacker had complete freedom to take any action, they chose to withdraw 10,000 votes in the form of TORN tokens and subsequently sell those assets.
Despite the attack and its consequences, Tornado Cash remains operational despite being subjected to U.S. Treasury sanctions since August 2022. As a decentralized coin mixer that exclusively handles cryptocurrencies, Tornado Cash’s lack of centralized operations may have hindered the direct enforcement of sanctions by the U.S. government, or they may simply have opted not to enforce them.
As the Tornado Cash community awaits the outcome of the recovery proposal, the future of the project’s governance and the potential consequences of the hacker’s actions remain uncertain.
Read more:
- Coinbase Supports Legal Challenge Against US Govt Sanctions On Tornado Cash
- Tornado Cash DAO Has Been Shut Down As It “Can’t Fight The US” And Contributors Are Scared Of Being Prosecuted
- Tornado Cash Governance Hacked: Attacker Takes Over With Malicious Proposal