Collective governance ultimately proved to be the downfall of Beanstalk. The entire crypto world is on edge after a string of hacks.
Ben Weintraub woke up to some bad news not long after quitting school to pursue a career in cryptocurrencies, reports New York Times.
In the previous three months, Weintraub and two of his University of Chicago classmates worked on a software platform called Beanstalk that offered a stablecoin, a type of cryptocurrency with a fixed value of $1. To their surprise, Beanstalk quickly gained popularity and attracted cryptocurrency speculators who saw it as an exciting addition to the experimental field of decentralized finance, or DeFi.
Later, it fell. In April, a hacker used a design flaw in Beanstalk to steal more than $180 million from consumers. This heist was one of many this year that targeted DeFi enterprises. Mr. Weintraub, 24, was at his Montclair, New Jersey, Passover home the morning of the hack. He entered the bedroom where his paren...