Assets, Ethereum

Why Did Ethereum Go Through a Hard Fork After the DAO Hack?

When the DAO hack occurred, the Ethereum community was faced with a dilemma. The hacker had stolen Ether from the DAO and it was not clear how to best retrieve the stolen funds and return them to the rightful owners. After much discussion, the community decided that the best course of action was to hard fork the Ethereum blockchain. This meant that there would be two versions of Ethereum, the original blockchain and the new forked blockchain.

NOTE: WARNING: Ethereum underwent a hard fork after the DAO hack in order to reverse the transactions involved in the hack and restore funds to investors. This hard fork should not be taken lightly, as it has the potential to create two competing versions of Ethereum—the original version and a new version with a reversed blockchain. As such, users should be aware that these competing versions could lead to instability in the cryptocurrency markets and adversely affect the value of their Ethereum investments.

The original blockchain would be left unchanged and the new forked blockchain would have the DAO hack reversed. This decision was not made lightly, but it was felt that it was the best way to protect the Ethereum community and ensure that the stolen funds were returned to their rightful owners.

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