Investors say they lost thousands of dollars from the 2021 hack and never received a portion of the funds they were promised as compensation.
The DAO Maker crypto fundraising platform, not to be confused with the MakerDAO stablecoin protocol, is attempting to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund new Web3 projects in 2024. However, victims of its August 2021 hack say the project never reimbursed them for the losses they suffered in the attack, even though its development team promised to make all victims whole again.
Victims also claim that DAO Maker is liable for these losses, as the hack was allegedly the result of a private key compromise suffered due to its developers’ negligence.
DAO Maker was first exploited in August 2021, when approximately $7 million of users’ funds were stolen. The development team later acknowledged that the exploit had occurred because of a private key hack. At the time, it agreed to partially compensate investors with an immediate airdrop of 500 USD Coin (USDC) per person. The remaining compensation was to be paid through an IOU token called “USDR.” This token would become redeemable for the protocol’s native coin, DAO, at prevailing prices within one year.