The DAO

2016-04-30

The DAO token crowdsale launches on the Ethereum blockchain, created by Slock.it developers led by Christoph Jentzsch.

2016-05-12

The DAO crowdsale surpasses $50 million raised — the largest crowdfunding in history at the time.

2016-05-15

Crowdsale exceeds $100 million in Ether raised.

2016-05-28

Crowdsale closes with approximately 12 million ETH (~$150 million) raised from the sale of 1.15 billion DAO tokens.

2016-06-09

Developer Peter Vessenes publishes a blog post warning of recursive-call vulnerabilities in Ethereum smart contracts.

2016-06-12

Slock.it's Stephan Tual publishes a post claiming The DAO is not at risk from the known recursive-call vulnerability.

2016-06-16

IC3 researchers publish further warnings about recursive-call vulnerabilities in Ethereum contracts.

2016-06-17

Attacker exploits reentrancy vulnerability in The DAO, draining 3.6 million ETH (~$50–60 million) into a child DAO contract subject to a 28-day holding period.

2016-06-17

Vitalik Buterin proposes a soft fork to blacklist attacker addresses; ETH price drops sharply from ~$20 to ~$13.

2016-07-16

Community vote on the hard fork: approximately 87% of participating ETH supports the fork, representing only 5.5% of total supply.

2016-07-20

Ethereum hard fork executed, moving drained funds to a recovery contract. Ethereum Classic (ETC) emerges as the continuation of the original unforked chain.

2016-09-01

DAO tokens delisted from major exchanges including Poloniex and Kraken; The DAO considered defunct.

2017-07-25

U.S. SEC issues investigative report concluding DAO tokens were unregistered securities; no charges filed but landmark precedent established.

2022-02-22

Forbes journalist Laura Shin alleges former TenX CEO Toby Hoenisch carried out the 2016 hack, based on Chainalysis blockchain analysis. Hoenisch denies the claim.