Gnosis Chain hard-forks to recover funds tied to Balancer $120M exploit

Gnosis Chain node operators executed a validator-approved hard fork to recover funds linked to the November Balancer exploit that drained nearly $120 million across chains. The network said the attacker no longer controls the assets and urged remaining operators to update nodes to avoid penalties; it did not disclose the exact recovery total. The hard fork follows an emergency soft fork in November that froze roughly $9.4 million on Gnosis Chain. On-chain data showed the attacker moved large amounts — including staked ETH — to new addresses before recovery attempts. Balancer traced the breach to a vulnerability in Balancer V2 Composable Stable Pools despite multiple audits; white-hat actors previously retrieved about $28 million. The decision to hard fork sparked debate: supporters praised coordinated recovery and user protection, while critics warned it weakens immutability and called for clearer intervention rules. For traders: expect heightened on-chain activity and potential short-term volatility around recovered-fund movements, DAO wallet transfers, validator announcements and any clawback or compensation proposals that could affect token flows.