Summary:
In July 2024, a crypto system, Dough Finance, established by Chase Herro, was targeted with an attack, which lost it 2.5 million dollars.
Investor Jonathan Lopez lost 1M $ after being demonstrated how to use the platform by Herro himself.
What prompted the hack was a code exploit, which was used only two months after Lopez had invested.
Its founders have pledged to pay it back, and subsequently fell silent.
Dough Finance provided its own tokens as rewards, yet users are not satisfied with them.
Lopez is bringing suit against Herro; the trial is scheduled in April 2026.
An auspicious beginning resolves into confusion
It looked like a bright idea when Jonathan Lopez spent a million dollars on Dough Finance in May 2024. The firm, which was launched by the World Liberty Financial co-founder, Chase Herro, seemed to be the new innovative platform in the crypto trading market. Herro went to an extent of even showing Lopez by herself on how to use the new platform which included a strategy called looping – taking off crypto and using it to buy more of the same coin.
But within two months, however, his confidence was dashed away when hackers took advantage of a hole in the code of the Dough Finance program and cleaned out the $2.5 million or approximately 10 percent of his investment.
Publishing, Performing, Performing, promisedness, politeness
Following the leak of July 12, the old business partner of Herro, Zachary Folkman was able to assure the investors:
We are not going to give up until every single person that is affected will be made whole.
Dough Finance also made an official apology saying:
We did not mean to do wrong and we are very sorry about it.
We shall still strive hard to make our users and their resources safe.
However, by August 18, Herro and Folkman have ceased to respond to alarming clients in the Telegram channel of the platform.
A Half Measure Is Never Enough
Dough Finance tried to redeem itself by airdropping an equal amount of token to the value of money lost and they would reclaim it in the future when (and if) exchanged with ETH. However, the change could not please most of the users who considered it to be a poor replacement of the money lost.
And to pour gasoline on the fire, only a month after maintaining silence, Herro and Folkman emerged in a new crypto venture World Liberty Financial, drawing eyeballs and suspicions among Dough Finance community.
Court Fight Come
Investor Jonathan Lopez has since filed a lawsuit against Herro, and the trial date should be in April 2026. This is because many other users are still wondering to be transparent and to be compensated as trust to Dough Finance is still crumbling.
Final Thoughts:
The Dough Finance case shows the persistence difficulties and threats within the sector of decentralized finance. Although the founders have taken some first steps to handle the situation, what later followed when they went quiet and posted nice new relationships on their websites and social profiles has just increased the frustrations in the minds of these users. The crypto world will be paying attention to the course of the lawsuit.