What to Know:

• Arthur Hayes, co-founder of BitMEX and a significant holder of ETH, raised concerns on X directed at Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin about potentially advocating for a rollback of the chain to assist Bybit after their recent hacking incident.
• This mentioned rollback generated immediate backlash from the Ethereum community, who collectively dismissed the idea.
• Ethereum developers strongly oppose any rollback as it questions the network’s core principle of decentralization.
• The Ethereum structure prevents a rollback due to its reliance on an account model, where accounts hold users’ ETH.

On Friday, it was reported that cryptocurrency exchange Bybit was hacked by North Korea’s Lazarus group, resulting in a loss of approximately $1.4 billion in ETH.

Following the hack, Hayes questioned in an X post whether Buterin might support a rollback to help Bybit. In a subsequent discussion, Ben Zhou, CEO of Bybit, noted that they reached out to the Ethereum Foundation regarding the possibility, emphasizing that any decision should reflect the community’s consensus.

The Ethereum community quickly rebutted suggestions for a rollback, emphasizing that such an act would undermine the very fabric of Ethereum’s decentralized governance. One community member famously stated, “Rolling back the chain would give ETH no purpose. What’s the point if you can just change the rules?” @the_weso tweeted this sentiment on X.

The backlash also included reminders of the 2016 DAO hack, wherein the network successfully executed a hard fork rather than a rollback, ultimately splitting into the two chains known today as Ethereum and Ethereum Classic.

This proposed rollback is currently met with skepticism, as Ethereum’s model does not support straightforward reversibility.