TheDAO Is Back: Can $220M Make Ethereum Unhackable
Ten years ago, TheDAO was the largest crowdfunded project in crypto history and the source of one of the most defining hacks the industry has ever seen. A hack so consequential it triggered Ethereum's hard fork and gave birth to Ethereum Classic.
Fast forward to 2026: TheDAO is back, and it's bullish.
The TheDAO Security Fund is now activating over 75,000 ETH (~$220M) to fund the work that keeps Ethereum safe from smart contract security and wallet UX to incident response and core protocol research. Long-idle "edge case" funds, untouched for a decade, are being staked and put to work in service of Ethereum's security.
Vitalik Buterin and a new set of Curators are stewarding the fund, with allocation handled through open mechanisms like quadratic funding, retroactive funding, and RFP-based voting bringing TheDAO back to its decentralized roots.
In this live, we sit down with the Griff Green behind TheDAO Security Fund to unpack what this means for Ethereum's next decade, how the funds will be allocated, and why security might just be the most underrated narrative in crypto right now.
On the agenda:
The TheDAO story: from $150M raise to $220M endowment what really happened?
Why Ethereum security is the priority and what "Trillion Dollar Security" actually means
How the fund will allocate capital: quadratic funding, retroactive rounds, RFP voting
Who decides what gets funded and how the broader ecosystem can participate
The role of staking, Dappnode, and home stakers in the fund's design
What's next: from SEAL 911 support to becoming a DAO again
How L2s, protocols, auditors, and security researchers can get involved
A live to understand why the most iconic chapter of Ethereum history is being rewritten and why this time, it might just make crypto safe enough to replace your bank.
About iExec
iExec builds programmable privacy infrastructure on EVM.
Off-chain computation runs inside secured TEEs, and on-chain it powers DeFi through the Confidential Token, removing the transparency barrier to institutionalDeFi adoption.
On Tuesday, May 5, 2026 · 5:00 PM (GMT+2)
Griff Green (Giveth) & Martin (DevRel at iExec) are going LIVE on X
Where: Streaming live on X (@martinlecl)