A debate has erupted in the Ethereum community following calls to roll back the network to its pre-Feb. 21 state in an effort to reverse the $1.5 billion hack on Bybit. However, Ethereum core developer Tim Beiko has firmly rejected the idea, warning that such a move would be technically impractical and highly disruptive.
On X, Beiko explained that the situation is far more complex than it seems to outsiders. While some crypto commentators believe a rollback could restore Bybit’s stolen funds, he clarified that Ethereum’s current infrastructure is far more advanced than in past incidents like The DAO hack of 2016, making such a reversal virtually impossible without severe consequences.
Bybit Hack Different from DAO Hack
Comparisons between the Bybit exploit and the infamous DAO hack in 2016 have been circulating, but Beiko was quick to point out key differences. In the DAO case, the attacker exploited a flaw in the smart contract governing the DAO, and because withdrawals were temporarily frozen, Ethereum developers had time to intervene before the stolen funds were moved. That event led to an emergency Ethereum hard fork, creating Ethereum (ETH) and Ethereum Classic (ETC).
However, the Bybit hack was fundamentally different. The attackers used a compromised wallet interface that made transactions appear legitimate while malicious code redirected the funds. Unlike in 2016, the exploiter instantly transferred and moved ETH through on-chain transactions.
“This was not a protocol-level failure,” Beiko explained. “The transactions followed Ethereum’s rules, making a rollback extremely complicated.”
Ethereum educator Anthony Sassano agreed, saying in a Feb. 22 X post, “That’s not how any of this works, and it’s not even how it worked with The DAO hack.”
Ripple Effects Could Be Catastrophic
Beiko stressed that reversing the hack wouldn’t just erase the stolen funds—it would undo all Ethereum transactions from that point forward, affecting DeFi protocols, NFT transfers, exchange sales, and real-world asset settlements.
Yuga Labs’ Blockchain VP, known as 0xQuit, warned that the fallout from a rollback would be far greater than the $1.5 billion loss itself.
“Thousands of innocent people would lose money, thousands more would gain money they shouldn’t,” Quit noted. “Ethereum is now the backbone of DeFi and cross-chain settlements—you can’t just rewind that kind of infrastructure.”
Despite the pushback from developers, some high-profile industry figures have supported a rollback. Jan3 CEO Samson Mow suggested that reversing the hack would not only recover Bybit’s funds but also prevent North Korea’s Lazarus Group from using the stolen ETH to finance weapons programs. BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes even tagged Vitalik Buterin in a post urging him to support a chain rollback.
Bybit CEO Ben Zhou stated in an X Spaces discussion that the decision should be up to the Ethereum community rather than a single entity or individual.
The post Ethereum Developer Warns Against Rollback After $1.5B Bybit Hack appeared first on TheCoinrise.com.
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