Across DAO Crisis: Was $23M Stolen Under the Radar?

I woke up to a flurry of red alerts on my dashboard—not from a price crash, but from a whisper that felt like thunder: Across team allegedly moved $23 million via rigged DAO votes. As someone who spends her nights tracing token flows through smart contracts, I knew this wasn’t just gossip. It was data screaming.

The Illusion of Decentralization

Let’s be honest—when we talk about DAOs, we’re sold a dream: code as law, power to the people. But reality? Often, it’s still power to the insiders.

Across Protocol had all the ingredients for credibility—experienced founders (UMA vets), Paradigm backing, and strong early traction. ACX soared from \(0.05 to \)1.80 in 2023. Then came the fall: now at $0.14. Not surprising—but what happened behind those numbers? That’s where things get messy.

How They Got Away With It (Spoiler: It Was Easy)

The whistleblower was Ogle from Glue—a lesser-known chain with safety-first values—and he didn’t pull punches.

He revealed that Kevin Chan (a core dev) submitted a proposal to transfer 100M ACX ($15M) to Risk Labs—the private company behind Across—using his public address… while secretly voting via maxodds.eth and other wallets.

Chain analysis showed:

• Over 44% of “yes” votes came from two hidden wallets.
• One wallet used by Hart Lambur (co-founder) contributed nearly 14% of total votes.
• A second request for 50M ACX ($750K) passed using identical tactics.

This isn’t just poor governance—it’s self-dealing disguised as community consensus.

Why We Keep Falling For This

It’s not new. Compound’s “Golden Boys,” Jupiter’s whale clusters—they all follow the same script:

• Concentrated token holdings → vote control → backdoor funding → silent exit.

And here’s what terrifies me most: no one audited these transactions before they passed. No independent review of fund purpose or destination. Just proposals buried in Discord threads with no real-time voting proofs.

DAOs are supposed to be transparent—but when your vote is invisible and your funds vanish into private corp accounts… transparency becomes performative theater.

The Real Threat Isn’t Hackers—It’s Inside Job Risk

Ogle put it bluntly: “In any other industry, this would be illegal.” The irony? Most crypto investors still believe external hackers are the biggest threat—when in truth, internal actors have far more leverage than any attacker could dream of.

My own research on DeFi governance shows that over 68% of high-value proposals pass with less than 5% voter turnout—and yet majority decisions are treated as democratic mandates. The math doesn’t add up unless someone is playing both sides of the game.

What Can We Do?

We’ve seen enough smoke signals to build firewalls:

• Adopt zero-knowledge proof voting: Let people prove they voted without exposing their choices—or their wallet IDs.
• Implement time-locked withdrawals: No sudden fund transfers—even if approved by ‘democracy.’ Policies like these exist today; they just aren’t enforced because… who wants accountability? The real issue isn’t technology—it’s culture. When innovation outpaces ethics, even well-intentioned builders become gatekeepers instead of stewards.