As a former Wall Street quant turned blockchain ethicist, I’ve analyzed the Across Protocol scandal closely. Its team exploited governance token concentration to hijack voting and siphon $23M from the DAO treasury—echoing past failures like The DAO and Compound. This isn’t just fraud; it’s a structural flaw in DeFi’s soul. Without transparency, DAOs are just centralized entities with fancy smart contracts. The data doesn’t lie—but the people behind it do.