Gnosis Chain Executes Hard Fork to Recover Funds From $116M Balancer Hack

• Following the hard fork, Cnosis confirmed that the funds recovered from the Balancer exploit are now out of the attacker’s control.
• The intervention has sparked debate over decentralization and immutability, as the hard fork was required to reclaim frozen funds.

In order to recover the funds from the $116 million Balancer exploit last month, in November, Gnosis Chain conducted a hard fork on December 22. This hard fork happened after a majority of validators adopted a soft fork in November, as the exploit had affected several Balancer-managed contracts on the Gnosis chain.

In a message on the X platform on Tuesday, December 23, Gnosis Chain confirmed its hard fork execution. Besides, the team has also issued a notice to node operators. This project has now confirmed that the recovered assets are now “out of the hacker’s control.” However, Gnosis hasn’t commented on the amount recovered so far from the market players. In a forum post earlier this year on Dec. 12, Gnosis’s head of infrastructure, Philippe Schommers, wrote:

Last month, on Nov. 3, decentralized exchange (DEX) and liquidity provider Balancer disclosed that it had suffered an exploit that led to over $116 million in losses. On-chain data showed that the attacker moved millions of dollars worth of staked Ether to a newly created wallet shortly after the breach. However, Balance later said that the white-hack hackers were able to recover nearly $28 million of the stolen funds. But data shows that the majority of the assets initially taken during the exploit have stayed uncovered.

Addressing Centralization Concerns

The $116 million Baslacer exploit shook the decentralized finance (DeFi) industry. Following the exploit, network validators approved a soft fork that limited bridge activity, thereby freezing $9.4 million of the stolen assets on-chain. However, recovering these funds has led to a subsequent hard fork. This has led to a debate questioning the immutable nature of the DEX.

Moreover, the community responses remain divided. Some community members have questioned whether the intervention determines decentralization. Lefteris Karapetsas, founder of the privacy-focused portfolio tracker Rotki, said that the action by the Gnosis team shows accountability instead of centralization. In a forum post, he added:

Other market experts have also shared a similar view. One user on X platform @CupOJoseph wrote: “Gnosis is based on doing this. Anyone who criticizes this is wrong. Taking a stand and fighting back is the right thing to do. In Gnosis we trust”.