2016Ethereum in 2016
2 key events this year.
2016 was a defining year for Ethereum. The DAO, a smart contract fund holding about 14 percent of all ether, was drained by an attacker in June. The community responded with a hard fork in July, and the original chain continued as Ethereum Classic.
Source: Coinbase Exchange ETH/USD daily closes 2016-05-18 to 2026-10-14. Fetched Oct 14, 2026 from free public APIs. Click a dot for the event and its price on that day.
Events in 2016
- Jun 17, 2016crash
The DAO hack $15.65 (Coinbase Exchange ETH/USD daily close, 2016-06-17)
An attacker drains about 3.6 million ETH from The DAO. - Jul 20, 2016fork
DAO hard fork and Ethereum Classic $12.50 (Coinbase Exchange ETH/USD daily close, 2016-07-20)
Ethereum forks to return DAO funds; the original chain lives on as ETC.
The DAO hack Jun 17, 2016
The DAO was a smart contract fund that raised about 12 million ETH, around 14 percent of all ether at the time, in May 2016. On June 17, 2016 an attacker used a reentrancy bug in its code to repeatedly withdraw funds before the balance updated, moving about 3.6 million ETH into a child contract.
DAO hard fork and Ethereum Classic Jul 20, 2016
At block 1,920,000 on July 20, 2016 Ethereum ran a hard fork that moved the stolen DAO ether into a contract where original investors could withdraw it. Nodes that refused the upgrade continued the unchanged chain, which exchanges listed as Ethereum Classic.
Updated
Sources
- Wikipedia: The DAO
- SEC Report of Investigation on The DAO (2017)
- Ethereum Foundation: hard fork completed
- ethereum.org history: DAO fork
Facts written in our own words. Last checked Oct 14, 2026.