Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) Fraud, Hacks, and Controversies

This chapter provides an overview of Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) fraud, hacks, and controversies. We begin the chapter with an introduction to DAO. Next, we analyze the case study of The DAO hack via a reentrancy attack and its aftermath. The chapter next discusses a variety of common DAO hack types, including flash loan attacks, voting power manipulation, oracle attacks, phishing attacks, and governance attacks. We then proceed to discuss oracles in more detail, including their function, varieties, and oracle alternatives. Next, we discuss DAO voting and governance approaches, decentralization metrics, and vote fraud methods. The chapter concludes with a review of case studies in DAO fraud and controversies, including the BONq DAO hack, the PeopleDAO hack, the Tornado Cash malicious proposal attack, and the Azuki DAO Hack.