Arthur Hayes Proposes Ethereum Rollback to Recover $1.4B Bybit Hack, Drawing Community Backlash
February 22, 2025
Arthur Hayes, co-founder of BitMEX and a significant Ethereum (ETH) holder, has sparked controversy by suggesting a rollback of the Ethereum blockchain to recover the $1.4 billion lost in last Friday’s Bybit hack.
Taking to social media platform X, Hayes directly addressed Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin:
“@VitalikButerin will you advocate to roll back the chain to help @Bybit_Official?” he posted.
Hayes elaborated on his stance, referencing Ethereum’s past decisions:
“My own view as a mega $ETH bag holder is $ETH stopped being money in 2016 after the DAO hack hard fork. If the community wanted to do it again, I would support it because we already voted no on immutability in 2016. Why not do it again?”
As of publication, Buterin had not responded to the post.
Feasibility and Community Response
While some, including journalist Laura Shin, speculated whether Hayes was joking, the proposal triggered serious debate about the feasibility of reversing blockchain transactions. When reached for comment, Hayes had yet to provide a statement.
“I wish we could roll back for the Bybit hack, I’m not against the idea,” said Gautham Santhosh, co-founder of Polynomial.fi. “But the DAO hack involved 15% of ETH and had a clean recovery path. Today, rolling back would disrupt bridges, stablecoins, L2s, RWAs, and more. The ETH ecosystem is too interconnected now for a solution like 2016.”
The Challenges of a Blockchain Rollback
A rollback would mean reverting the blockchain to a previous state before the hack, effectively erasing the attacker’s transactions. However, achieving this would require broad consensus among Ethereum network participants.
In 2016, Ethereum underwent a controversial hard fork to recover $60 million stolen from The DAO. The event split the blockchain into Ethereum (ETH) and Ethereum Classic (ETC), fueling ongoing debates about blockchain immutability. At the time, Ethereum developers described the move as an “irregular state transition” rather than a rollback.
Immutability is considered a fundamental principle of blockchain technology, ensuring data remains unalterable after being recorded. The concept was previously challenged in 2019 when Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) briefly considered a Bitcoin rollback after a $40 million hack. The Bitcoin mining community strongly opposed the move, citing the importance of decentralization and immutability.
Similarly, the Ethereum community has largely dismissed Hayes’ rollback proposal, arguing that today’s Ethereum network is vastly more complex than it was in 2016, making such an action nearly impossible.
The Bybit Hack and Its Fallout
The Bybit hack was first flagged on Friday when on-chain investigator ZachXBT identified suspicious outflows exceeding $1.4 billion. The attacker quickly swapped mETH and stETH for ETH using decentralized exchanges.
Further analysis linked the attack to North Korea’s notorious Lazarus Group. According to Polynomial.fi’s Santhosh, the stolen funds were distributed across multiple addresses, including transactions of 10,000 ETH to 39 different wallets and another 10,000 ETH to nine wallets.
Bybit CEO Ben Zhou confirmed that the exchange remains solvent despite the attack. “The hacker took control of a specific ETH cold wallet and transferred all the ETH to an unidentified address,” Zhou said. “Even if we cannot recover the lost funds, Bybit remains financially stable.”
Conclusion
While Hayes’ proposal has fueled intense debate, the likelihood of an Ethereum rollback remains slim given the network’s current structure and the widespread opposition to altering blockchain history. The Bybit hack, however, has reignited discussions around security vulnerabilities in the crypto space and the evolving nature of blockchain governance.
Margaux Nijkerk contributed to this report.
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