AnubisDAO hack — October 2021

AnubisDAO opened a token sale on 28 October 2021 through Copper, a launch platform that bootstraps liquidity pools on Balancer. Buyers sent ether into the pool in exchange for the project's ANKH token, on the stated basis that the raised ether would back the DAO as protocol-owned reserves. The project had no website and no white paper, and its founders operated under pseudonyms.

About twenty hours into the sale, at roughly 11:58 UTC on 29 October, the liquidity was removed from the pool and sent to addresses outside the project's control. ANKH collapsed to nothing. Published figures differ on both quantity and conversion: Protos and Crypto Briefing put the drain at 13,556 ETH and value it at about $56 million, while Decrypt and Crypto Briefing reported roughly $60 million and The Block later gave the figure as 13,597 ETH worth about $60 million.

Control of the pool rested with a single founder using the pseudonym Beerus, an arrangement a second founder, Sisyphus, later called a crucial mistake. Sisyphus described the incident as a rug pull by a rogue team member. Beerus denied it, saying he had opened an email carrying malware and was being framed, while Sisyphus said security researchers found nothing malicious on the machine handed over. No charges have been brought against anyone and neither account has been tested in court. Both founders said they had contacted police in Hong Kong and US Homeland Security Investigations, and a 1,000 ETH reward was offered for information identifying the responsible wallet.

The funds sat untouched for eight months. On 24 June 2022 the wallet moved for the first time since the theft, sending 1,097 ETH to an intermediary address, 1,018 ETH of which was laundered through Tornado Cash. None of it has been returned.