Across protocol accused of manipulating DAO votes to misappropriate funds, highlighting the dilemma of Decentralization governance.

Recently, the cross-chain bridge protocol Across team has been accused of manipulating DAO votes and embezzling up to 23 million USD. This accusation has attracted widespread attention from the community and has once again brought the transparency and security issues of DAO governance mechanisms to the forefront.

Across is a cross-chain bridge protocol designed to achieve seamless asset transfers between different blockchains. The project has received multiple rounds of funding, with a rather prestigious lineup of investors. Its founding team members have previously worked on well-known projects such as UMA and Risk Labs.

However, the governance model of Across relies on DAO, allowing users holding governance tokens to participate in proposal voting, determining the funding allocation and development direction of the protocol. However, this characteristic of decentralization often faces doubts of "centralized manipulation" in practice.

According to allegations, the Across team manipulated DAO voting through opaque means, bypassing the normal governance processes of the community, and transferred $23 million in funds to unknown accounts. Specifically including:

1. Voting manipulation: The team uses multiple associated wallets to centralize voting, creating the illusion of community support.
2. Misappropriation of funds: Transferring DAO funds to accounts not supervised by the community by manipulating the proposals passed.
3. Lack of transparency: The proposal content has not been fully disclosed, and the voting process has not provided real-time on-chain data.

The accuser detailed two suspicious funding transfer proposals. In October 2023, someone proposed to transfer 100 million ACX tokens (approximately 15 million USD) from the DAO to the founder's private company. On-chain analysis showed that this proposal was actually secretly pushed by team members. Less than a year later, there was another "retrospective funding" proposal requesting 50 million ACX (approximately 7.5 million USD). Similarly, there were obvious signs of manipulation in this vote as well.

This event reflects the common issues of DAO governance:

1. Centralization of power: Unequal token distribution leads to a few "whales" controlling the voting results.
2. Insufficient voting transparency: Difficult to track the actual voting behavior of tokens.
3. Security Risks: The DAO treasury is an easy target for attacks.
4. Legal and Liability Ambiguity: The legal status of the DAO is unclear, and members may face unexpected liabilities.

Faced with the challenges of DAO governance, the industry needs to seek improvements from three levels: technology, mechanisms, and culture. For example, adopting zero-knowledge proof technology to protect voting privacy, optimizing token distribution and voting weight design, and mandating that proposals and fund flows undergo independent audits.

The Across event is a wake-up call for the blockchain governance ecosystem. As an ideal vehicle for Decentralization, DAO carries the community's expectations for fairness and transparency, but its development still faces many challenges. The industry should take this as an opportunity to accelerate the iteration and improvement of governance mechanisms.