TempleDAO Hacked Funds Deposited to Tornado Cash

The TempleDAO exploiter transferred stolen funds to the privacy protocol’s smart contract, according to Etherscan data

article-image

Source: DALL·E

share

key takeaways

  • Hack amounted to 4% of TempleDAO’s assets
  • Tornado Cash is a sanctioned entity in the US, meaning individuals there are prohibited from dealing with the mixer

A hacker who exploited DeFi protocol TempleDAO used sanctioned crypto mixer Tornado Cash to move their stolen funds.

Earlier this month, the yield-farming protocol was exploited for 1,831 ETH (around $2.34 million). All funds were moved to a new wallet

Etherscan data shows about the same amount of ether was transferred from the hacker’s identified address to a Tornado Cash router on Sunday. The move will obfuscate the destination of the stolen funds. The protocol’s immutable smart contracts are capable of providing privacy for criminals as well as lawful users.

Blockchain investigator PeckShield first noted the exploiter’s use of the crypto mixer.

Loading Tweet..

The transfers began with 0.1 ether, followed within minutes by multiple other transactions worth 100 ether each.

Tornado Cash acts as a cryptoasset mixer, making it extremely difficult to trace precisely the origin of funds withdrawn. It was added to the US Treasury’s sanctioned list of “Specially Designated Individuals” in August, prohibiting people in the country from dealing with the service. 

The Treasury’s primary concern was the mixer’s role in laundering over $455 million worth of cryptoassets stolen by the North Korean hacking group Lazarus. 

Before TempleDAO’s exploit, the protocol’s total value locked stood at about $57 million, according to DeFiLlama. The attack amounted to about 4% of its assets. Security firm BlockSec said the root cause behind it was insufficient access control to a specific function in the affiliated Stax Finance smart contract. 

October marks the highest value of crypto hacked all year

October has so far turned out to be a record month for hacking activity, with stolen funds amounting to $718 million across 11 different DeFi protocols, according to Chainalysis.

The $100 million exploit of Binance’s BNB chain and the $112 million extracted from Mango Markets took place in the last two weeks  — and the month is only half over.


Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

Tags

Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily, with Byron Gilliam.

Upcoming Events

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

recent research

Research Report Templates.png

Research

Pipe Network is a decentralized content delivery network (dCDN) that replaces the sparse, capital intensive data center footprint of traditional CDNs with a permissionless mesh of independent node operators. By orchestrating under-utilized resources that already exist at the edge, rather than purchasing or leasing thousands of servers, Pipe slashes capital intensity while letting supply expand autonomously in the places where bandwidth is scarcest and most expensive.

article-image

Core’s David Roos says that there won’t be ‘thousands’ of stablecoins launched at once

article-image

Some businesses run on low margins by choice. Others do it because they have no choice.

article-image

BAM, DoubleZero and Alpenglow will drive the new upgrades

article-image

White House officials have until Friday to solidify tariff agreements with most countries

article-image

Sponsored

Fluence is a decentralized marketplace that connects businesses requiring enterprise-grade computing power with professional infrastructure providers