Monday marked the eighth anniversary of the infamous “DAO Attack,” which wasn’t the first hack in the crypto industry but is perhaps the most consequential. It set the basis for much of the regulatory interpretation of the industry (through the Security and Exchange Commission’s “DAO Report”), and changed how the Ethereum community self-governs (through hard forks).

“It was a defining moment for Ethereum,” crypto legal expert and founder of the MetaLeX protocol, Gabriel Shapiro, told The Block in an interview. “Other chains have not really been similarly tested, or when tested have not responded to it in a way that solidified community, but rather divided it instead.”

In short, the DAO Attack on June 17, 2016, helped establish Ethereum’s “social layer,” what Ethereum co-creator Vitalik …