A reentrancy exploit took funds now worth $6.26 billion after a flagged vulnerability remained unpatched pending community approval, leading to the split that created Ethereum Classic.
A decade ago, an attacker exploited The DAO using a reentrancy exploit (smart contract vulnerability that repeatedly withdraws funds), draining 3.6 million ETH, an amount the source says is now worth $6.26 billion. The flaw had been identified weeks earlier, but fixes were still awaiting community approval when the attack happened. The incident became one of crypto’s defining governance crises, ultimately prompting a hard fork (blockchain split creating a new chain) that created Ethereum Classic.