Tornado Cash Hacker Hints of Undoing Attack Pushing Price of Torn Up by 10%

Updated: 22 May 2023

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The Tornado Cash hacker recently submitted a proposal, hinting they will undo an attack launched on the protocol’s governance token. This move has had a significant impact, propelling the platform’s token (TORN) price by 10%.

In a public statement on the Tornado Cash community forum, a user named Tornadosaurus-Hex announced that “The attacker posted a new proposal to restore the state of governance.” This user also added that “there’s a good chance” that the attacker would follow through on their proposal.

Such news comes as a major relief to the Tornado Cash community because the attack had practically taken the Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) hostage as far as the platform’s governance was concerned.

In the wake of the attack, the hacker circulated a proposal containing a malicious function. The suspect lines of code assigned the attacker 12 million fake votes. This number exceeded the 700,000 legitimate votes on the platform, making the hacker the largest holder of TORN’s governance votes. The stunt caused a lot of tension because it completely undermined the decentralized nature of the DAO. Consequently, TORN’s price took a nosedive, losing about 40% of its value.

Is it Self Satisfaction or a Realization of the Common Good?

Although it’s not cast in stone, there’s a very high likelihood that the TORN hacker will give back the governance tokens. What’s not clear, though, is their motive for doing this. Why would they go to such lengths to acquire governance only to give it back?

There’s a lot of speculation on the matter. Opinions swing between the hacker’s need for self-satisfaction. Perhaps they were doing this to prove a point, and now that they have, they can give back the ill-acquired assets.

It is also possible that the hacker or hackers have realized their scheme’s impact on the protocol. This made them decide to do what was right to save it from ruin. Even before the governance token hack, Tornado Cash was in the middle of a crypto scandal in late 2022.

Through a concerted effort with the Dutch Fiscal Information and Investigation Service, U.S. regulators issued an arrest warrant for Tornado Cash developer Alexey Pertsev. According to these authorities, the fact that Pertsev’s brainchild enables users to hide transaction details is a legal breach.

Specifically, the U.S. regulators say that Tornado Cash is aiding “laundering for malicious cyber actors.” Dutch authorities added that some of the “included funds” on the platform were “stolen through hacks by a group believed to be associated with North Korea.”

With this and the price dip that TORN took after the governance hack, the attacker may have felt they were fanning flames that could destroy Tornado Cash. Perhaps this was not their intention, so they decided to undo their mess, and so far, it’s working.

Since the announcement of the new proposal went viral, TORN’s price has increased by about 10%. As the platform’s publicity grows following the return of the tokens, the prices will likely go up even further.

Can TornadoCash Regain User Trust?

A crypto security breach is one of the biggest reasons for customer apathy on decentralized platforms. Hacks indicate the protocol isn’t secure, leading to distrust among clients.

Tornado Cash suffered this impact when news of the governance hack spread. Many investors sold their tokens, leading to a significant price dip, but this wasn’t entirely necessary. The hack introduced a major governance challenge. However, it could not and did not affect how users move funds or obscure transaction details on the Tornado Cash protocol.

The governance token breach did not affect smart contracts or other technologies used to run Tornado Cash. However, the platform’s team will need to do a lot to change user perception. They will need to convince them that the protocol will not experience another attack on actual assets.