Gnosis Chain executed a hard fork December 22 to recover approximately $9.4 million frozen after November's Balancer exploit.
The hard fork activated at 16:11 UTC following a governance-approved proposal.
Validators who failed to upgrade their nodes faced penalties ranging from suspended staking rewards to potential slashing.
The decision sparked heated debate within the crypto community over blockchain immutability principles.
What Happened
Balancer suffered a $128 million exploit in November affecting liquidity pools across multiple networks including Ethereum, Gnosis, and others.
The attack stemmed from a rounding error in Balancer V2's Composable Stable Pools.
Gnosis Chain initially implemented a soft fork to freeze approximately $9.4 million of stolen funds on its network.
The December 22 hard fork was required to unlock and return these frozen assets to affected users.
Philippe Schommers, Gnosis head of infrastructure, said in a December 12 governance forum post the team aimed to enable fund recovery by Christmas.
Approximately $28 million was recovered by white hat hackers across all affected chains, with StakeWise DAO recovering roughly $19 million in osETH alone.
The Gnosis hard fork represents a portion of broader recovery efforts across the ecosystem.
Read also: Are Bitcoin Rallies Running Out Of Steam? Analysts Flag Supply Risks As Ether Firms Up
Why It Matters
The hard fork divided the community between those praising accountability and others questioning whether it violates "code is law" principles.
DeFi analyst Ignas warned the soft fork already compromised immutability regardless of the hard fork outcome.
Others argued that choosing not to act would demonstrate irresponsibility toward affected users.
Schommers countered that the fork requires "relatively minor changes that do not affect chain history" and maintains fundamental immutability.
GNO token fell 3% to approximately $115 following the announcement.
The precedent raises questions about when blockchain intervention becomes acceptable during security incidents.
Balancer attributed the vulnerability to a rounding error despite the protocol undergoing 11 audits by four security firms.
The incident highlights ongoing tensions between user protection and decentralization principles in DeFi.
Read next: Why Crypto’s Next Cycle Will Be Driven By Balance Sheets, Not Speculation