[Translation] One year anniversary is coming soon! Was The DAO the greatest event that happened to Ethereum? And can The DAO be created again?

Since that dreaded day when The DAO was hacked (2016.06.17), it’s almost been a year now.

As someone who was captivated by The DAO and kept following it, it was a very disappointing incident, but I believe the pain from that event is what contributed to the current growth of Ethereum.

If The DAO had been a standalone project without backing from the Ethereum community, it might have just died, hackers would be triumphant, investors would be devastated, outsiders would conclude, “cryptocurrencies are just a dangerous world,” and that would have been the end of it, I think.

Watching the situation in those times taught me a lot, and amidst all the clamor, I think the experience was in a sense “training” or maturation, which was a payoff (laugh).

Now, during this period, there was a perfectly timely article, so I translated it into English.

Was The DAO the best event that happened to Ethereum? And can The DAO be stirred up again?

Last summer, for the first time in human history, about $250 million was stolen. After the code was upgraded, the theft was prevented, and the money was returned to its rightful owners.

At that time, there were voices saying that if Ethereum decided to compensate the victims as a collective, Ethereum would be finished. And now, not even a year later, the market values both the currency and the platform at roughly five times the peak before The DAO.

On the other hand, the so-called immutable ETC chain has only a value slightly above the lowest price recorded after ETH underwent a hard fork (as of 2017.05.13).
(* Immutable means that once created, its state cannot be changed.)

So, were those who criticized Ethereum wrong?

Was The DAO actually the best event that has happened to Ethereum so far?

The market seems to think so. Perhaps it trusts and collaborates with a community that, for a very important issue involving $250 million, made quick and realistic judgments.

Undoubtedly, the market values only a very exceptional, easily applicable fail-safe mechanism. The market probably believes that one mistake should not cause $250 million to be lost.