The DAO’s Unclaimed ETH Becomes a $220M Ethereum Security Fund - Unchained Recap

Podcast: Unchained

Published: 2026-01-29

Duration: 1 hr 24 min

Guests: Griff Green

Summary

Griff Green discusses the transformation of unclaimed ETH from the 2016 DAO hack into a $220 million security fund to enhance Ethereum's security. The fund aims to prevent future exploits by supporting security research and incident response within the Ethereum ecosystem.

What Happened

Griff Green, a co-founder of Giveth and one of the original DAO curators, delves into the formation of the DAO Security Fund. This initiative emerged nearly a decade after the infamous 2016 DAO hack. The hack itself was a pivotal event in Ethereum's history, resulting in a contentious hard fork and the creation of Ethereum Classic. Despite the controversy, it's notable that participants were able to reclaim their funds and even profit from the event, which is rare in cases of cybercrime.

The DAO Security Fund is leveraging about 70,000 ETH, left unclaimed from the original DAO, to build a long-term security resource for the Ethereum network. This fund will deploy grants to support Ethereum security research, infrastructure development, incident response, and user protection. Additionally, the fund aims to revive DAO-based governance experiments.

The Ethereum Foundation is playing a significant role in the fund, with its grants management team setting eligibility criteria for the security grants. The fund plans to generate sustainable funding by staking the leftover ETH, expecting to yield about $8 million this year to support these security initiatives.

Griff Green emphasizes that despite Ethereum's growth and strength, the crypto space still isn't safe enough for everyday users. He advocates for making Ethereum safer than traditional banks and aims to achieve this through the fund's initiatives.

The DAO Security Fund also intends to utilize innovative distribution methods like retro funding, quadratic funding, and conviction voting for grant allocations. These methods aim to support broader decision-making processes within DAOs, moving beyond traditional corporate governance models.

The idea for the DAO Security Fund was conceptualized about six months ago at Burning Man, with contributions from notable figures like Vitalik Buterin. The fund is now structured as a DAO LLC, based in the Marshall Islands, and includes seven curators guiding its direction.

Griff Green's journey from a biopharmaceutical engineer to a key figure in the Ethereum community adds a personal dimension to the discussion. He also praises 'The Cryptopians' by Laura Shin as a valuable resource for understanding the early days of Ethereum and the DAO's impact.

For projects seeking funding, interested parties are encouraged to connect through the DAO.fund website or follow @theDAOfund on Twitter. The fund is taking a measured approach to understanding the security landscape and effectively allocating resources to enhance Ethereum's security.

Key Insights