Hack history / 2023 / Hack or exploit
Tornado Cash
Hack or exploit on May 20, 2023 · Malicious Proposal
IN REVIEWSOURCES DISAGREE ON DATE OR LOSS · 4 SOURCES
Lost
$2.2M
sources: $1.1M to $2.2M
Returned
none listed
as the sources state it
Rank
#666
among thefts by dollars lost
What happened
An attacker exploited Tornado Cash governance by proposing a malicious proposal that appeared identical to a previously approved one, gaining voter trust. The malicious code granted 1.2M governance votes to the attacker, exceeding legitimate votes and gaining full governance control. The attacker drained 483,000 TORN tokens ($2.17M) from governance vaults before later proposing its reversal.
In review: possible duplicate within one source; sources disagree on the loss.
Details
- Date
- May 20, 2023
- Kind
- Hack or exploit
- Method
- Malicious Proposal
- How in
- Price, oracle and governance
- Target
- DAO
- Chains
- Ethereum
- Audit (rekt.news)
- unaudited
Related incidents
Solido Cash 2026 · Hack or exploit · $900K
FOOM Cash 2026 · Hack or exploit · $2.3M
Veil Cash 2026 · Hack or exploit · $5K
Tornado Cash 2024 · Hack or exploit · undisclosed
Trader trying to cash out their rewards from a DeFi platform loses more than $35,000 to a Twitter support scammer 2022 · Scam · $35K
FOOM Cash 2026 · Hack or exploit · $2.3M
Veil Cash 2026 · Hack or exploit · $5K
Tornado Cash 2024 · Hack or exploit · undisclosed
Trader trying to cash out their rewards from a DeFi platform loses more than $35,000 to a Twitter support scammer 2022 · Scam · $35K
Cite this page
SwanBluechip, "Tornado Cash hack, May 20, 2023: $2.2M lost", Crypto hack history, https://swan-hack-tracker.pages.dev/history/i/htd7cac5c4a7/ (data as of 2026-10-31).