Gnosis Announces Hard Fork to Recover Funds from Balancer Exploit
Gnosis chain operators executed a hard fork to recover funds from a $116 million Balancer exploit that occurred in November 2023. The hard fork followed a prior soft fork by validators focused on affected Balancer-managed contracts. Gnosis stated that recovered funds were now out of the hacker’s control, with ongoing discussions about how victims will reclaim assets and how those involved in the recovery will be recognized or compensated. The team aimed to have the funds secured in a DAO-controlled wallet before Christmas. The original exploit targeted Balancer, a decentralized exchange, resulting in the loss of over $116 million in digital assets—mostly staked Ether. While white hat hackers recovered roughly $28 million, the bulk of assets remained missing until the Gnosis intervention. Despite undergoing 11 security audits by four companies, the Balancer exploit still occurred and was isolated to V2 Composable Stable Pools.
