The success of the Ethereum blockchain has brought immense wealth to many early investors — but several massive events have shaped the coin’s development. One of the most significant was the DAO hack that led directly to a hard fork, which split the currency into two separate coins).

The DAO hack left many investors without access to their funds, and years later, many of those users have not regained their Ether tokens. Few up-to-date resources are currently available for Ether fund recovery, but the experts at Datarecovery.com have found effective methods for restoring these tokens, and our methods remain effective in 2021.

If you lost access to Ether tokens due to the DAO hack, call us now at 1-800-237-4200 or read on for more information.

A Brief Overview of the DAO Hack and Ethereum Hard Fork

The Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) was an early attempt to create a decentralized business model on the Ethereum blockchain. Established through a massive crowdfunding campaign, The Dao raised more than $34 million by May 10, 2016, eventually amassing an ether value of more than $150 million.

Unfortunately, The DAO’s code had serious security issues. The organization was vulnerable to numerous attack vectors, which have been thoroughly detailed by the B9lab blog.

In early 2016, The DAO was attacked. A hacker drained 3.6 million ether from The DAO, but white hat hackers responded quickly, creating a plan to protect the remaining 70% of The DAO’s funds. Those methods were only partially successful, and Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin presented several options to the blockchain’s community to find a resolution.

The DAO hack was ultimately resolved on July 20, 2016, via a hard fork, which essentially erased the hack from the blockchain’s history. The hard fork was controversial, and many Ethereum advocates remained on the original blockchain, which is now generally referred to as Ethereum Classic. However, it allowed DAO victims to recover their funds via the new blockchain.

Many victims of the DAO hack have not recovered their ether.

In the months after the Ethereum hard fork, DAO contract holders were able to use several widely publicized methods to withdraw their ether. These methods built-in time limits to protect the integrity of the blockchain; however, many contract holders faced challenges that prevented them from restoring their funds within the first months following the hack.

Major issues included:

• Many Ethereum users did not save key information about their DAO contracts, which made token tracking difficult.

• Recovery required an active Ethereum wallet. Some users received error messages because their accounts did not have ether (and couldn’t pay for transaction processing). Users may have errantly determined that recovery was impossible.

• Over time, some recovery methods have become obsolete. The WithdrawDAO contract expired in 2017, and confusion regarding the implications of the contract expiration led many users to assume that their DAO accounts were permanently lost.

DAO can still be converted to ETH. Datarecovery.com can help. As experts in cryptocurrency recovery, we can restore access to lost ether tokens in the vast majority of situations. Our no data, no charge policy gives you peace of mind as your case progresses; if your wallet remains inaccessible, you will not pay for the failed recovery attempts.If you’ve lost access to funds due to the DAO hack — or if you’re unable to access your Ethereum wallet for any other reason — call us today at 1-800-237-4200 to speak with a cryptocurrency recovery expert or fill out our online case form.

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What Is an NFT?

In March of this year, digital artist Mike Winkelmann (more commonly known as Beeple) sold a JPG for 69.3 million dollars. Not only is this one of the highest price tags for a piece of art ever sold, but the enormous 21,069 pixel x 21,069 pixel collage — titled EVERYDAYS: THE FIRST 5000 DAYS — is also the most expensive NFT in the very brief history of the digital asset. But… what exactly is an NFT?

The short answer is that NFT stands for non-fungible token. This doesn’t make it any clearer why someone would pay almost 70 million dollars for what is essentially a digital file when a person could seemingly just save the image to their computer for free, though. You see, the key to understanding NFTs lies in those first two letters: NF. Non-fungible. This means that the token (the T of NFT) cannot be replaced. It’s one of a kind. Compare this to currency in general terms (either dollars or cryptocurrency like Bitcoin). Currency is fungible. There is effectively no difference in regard to value between one dollar and another dollar, or between one Bitcoin and another Bitcoin. They are interchangeable in their use.

This still leaves the question of ownership, though. How can a person truly own an image when anyone could come along and simply save the image to their computer and say they own it? It’s a valid question, and the answer still might not satisfy you: Think of the Mona Lisa. Anyone can print out a picture of Leonardo da Vinci’s most famous work, but it doesn’t change the fact that the one and only original remains on the wall at the Louvre Museum in Paris, France. The same goes for NFTs. Every printed or forged copy of the Mona Lisa will have distinctions in comparison to the original, but an NFT has a digital makeup that identities it as one of a kind. It’s all about trying to bring verifiable ownership to crypto, in other words — but it’s more akin to a Certificate of Authenticity, really.

Why Are NFTs So Popular?

While NFTs have had the most success in the art world, they can really be any digital thing, from social media posts to albums to sketches to documents and anything in between. For this reason, notable figures from all corners of the pop culture pantheon have come out of the woodworks to dip their toes in NFTs. Actors like William Shatner, musicians like Weezer, plenty of social media influencers, and countless others — like the creator of ancient internet meme Nyan Cat — have done their part to wheel and deal NFTs. All of these big names have essentially worked in tandem with one another to make this novel crypto asset blow up.

Not to mention, NFTs have been making millions in the past month or so — and not just Beeple’s EVERYDAYS: THE FIRST 5000 DAYS. All sorts of other artists have made anywhere from one to ten million dollars on their own respective NFTs. Their success with NFTs combined with the almost meme-ification of the crypto asset by verified celebrities and other social media users has created an unprecedented amount of buzz.

Are NFTs Worth It?

To answer the question of whether or not NFTs are worth it, let’s get into how they actually work on a technical level. See, the majority of NFTs are a part of the Ethereum blockchain. While Ethereum itself is a cryptocurrency, it’s the cryptocurrency’s blockchain that holds the large chunk of the world’s NFTs. For this reason, other blockchains are free to implement their own version of NFTs if they pleased — Which potentially raises a red flag for the future of NFTs themselves, should another blockchain choose to do their own take on them.

Beyond this, while NFTs promote ownership, the artist often still retains the copyright and reproduction rights — meaning that your one-of-a-kind non-fungible token might not be so non-fungible as you initially thought it was. If an artist’s NFT doesn’t sell for the high price they expected it to sell for, then there’s nothing stopping them from taking another crack at it and creating another token. For this reason, NFTs are less like proof of ownership and more like proof of commemoration.

While these two factors definitely make NFTs sound riskier for buyers, they’re big positives for sellers. Not only do they give artists the opportunity to sell their work for much more than they ever would have had the chance to otherwise, NFTs optionally come equipped with a feature that pays the artist a percentage every time the token is sold or traded.

The Future of NFTs

Wherever you fall in the great NFT debate, the future of NFTs remains pretty murky. Five, ten, 100 years from now, who’s to say how much these non-fungible tokens will be worth? Not to mention, there’s always the possibility that the NFT owner’s crypto wallet could be lost or stolen, that the image quality could decline, that the artist could create ten more copies that devalue your token, and countless other risks that make these crypto assets far more risky than, say, Bitcoin.

If anything, the popularity of NFTs doesn’t suggest that they will become the future of cryptocurrency, but that many other kinds of crypto assets are sure to emerge in the coming years to compete with their success. Given Bitcoin’s immense and ever-increasing price tag, it’s clear that cryptocurrency isn’t going anywhere. Whether or not NFTs will blow up in a good way or in a bad way remains to be seen, but this much is clear: they surely won’t be the last of their kind.

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