How Across Protocol Manipulated DAO Voting and Embezzled $23M—A Systemic Failure in Decentralized Governance

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How Across Protocol Manipulated DAO Voting and Embezzled $23M—A Systemic Failure in Decentralized Governance

The Illusion of Decentralization

Across Protocol promised seamless cross-chain interoperability. But its governance? A theater. Team members used hidden wallets—maxodds.eth, HartLambur.eth—to stack over 44% of voting power. They submitted a proposal to move $15M in ACX tokens to Risk Labs, then voted for it themselves. No public debate. No audit trail.

The Mechanics of Capture

DAOs aren’t broken because they’re decentralized—they’re broken because token distribution is skewed. Just 5 wallets held more than half the votes here. That’s not democracy; that’s plutocracy with an Ethereum address. Compare this to Jupiter DAO’s Golden Boys incident or Beanstalk’s flash loan collapse: same script, new actors.

Why Transparency Isn’t Optional

The $23M wasn’t stolen—it was transferred through a vote that never should have happened. Chain explorers show the ballot was tallied by addresses never disclosed in proposals. No on-chain rationale. No timestamped deliberation.

We built ZK-proofs for privacy—not to hide votes, but to prove them authentically.

The Real Risk Isn’t Hackers—It’s Founders

Most fear external threats: bots, exploits, phishing attacks. But the real danger? Internal actors with vested interests and access to multisig keys. Kevin Chan didn’t rob us—he convinced us we were safe while he rigged the system.

Toward a Post-Centeralized Future

This isn’t about Across. It’s about every DAO that treats its treasury like a private bank account. The fix? Quadratic voting + time-locked multisigs + third-party audits published on IPFS. Or we stop pretending decentralization is possible when incentives remain concentrated in five hands.

QuantumLogic77

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Hot comment (2)

鏈上觀測者
鏈上觀測者鏈上觀測者
2 days ago

這哪是去中心化治理?根本是五人皇朝!$23M不是被偷,是用投票‘合法搶’的。Chainlink預言機在那邊喝著珍珠奶茶,一邊幫你把ACX代幣轉成台北夜市的豪門宴。區塊鏈沒出事,出事的是背後那群穿西裝的‘技術儒生’——他們連智能合約都寫成家譜了,還說這是民主?笑到打嗝!你說是不是該投個票?還是先買個金鑰匙開銀行帳戶啊?快來留言:你的錢包,有沒有被當成‘浮世繪’啊?

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开碗小浪花
开碗小浪花开碗小浪花
2 hours ago

พอรู้ว่าแค่ 5 กระเป๋า ก็ควบคุมทั้งระบบ DAO ได้? เหมือนกับวัดในกรุงเทพที่มี only child คนเดียวเป็นผู้ออกเสียง… ส่วนอีก 99% เป็นบอท! เงินหาย? เปล่า! มันแค่ถูกโหวดโดยพ่อคุณแม่ที่นั่งสมาธิอยู่หน้าจอแบบสบายๆ 🧘‍♂️

แล้วคุณล่ะ? เคยเรียนรู้อะไรจากการสูญเสียเงินไปแล้วไม่มีใครร้องไห้?

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