Interpath Limited, a consulting firm specializing in insolvency, has assumed full control of the Hector decentralized autonomous organization (Hector DAO) treasury as of February 21. The company, also known as “Interpath Advisory,” has also taken charge of the HectorDAO social media channels and plans to use them as a means of communication with investors moving forward. These announcements were made on the protocol’s Telegram channel on February 19 and 21.
In January, HectorDAO was targeted in a hack that resulted in the loss of $2.7 million. Analysts have speculated that the hack was either due to a compromise of private keys or the actions of a rogue developer. Since then, some investors in the DAO have pointed fingers at the development team and argued that an impartial third party should take control of the assets. It appears that this is now occurring.
According to the announcement on February 19, “Mr Drury and Mr Pretlove, both of Interpath (BVI) Limited, were appointed by the Virgin Islands High Court (Commercial Division), Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court as joint and several interim receivers (the Receivers) over all of the assets held by or on behalf of Hector DAO.”
Interpath is listed as a regulated entity and insolvency practitioner by the British Virgin Islands Financial Services Commission, indicating that the funds will be handed over to professional liquidators and will no longer be under the custody of the HectorDAO team.
The announcement also mentioned that Interpath has assumed control of the protocol’s social media channels. “The Receivers have control of the communication channels of Hector Network and will provide more information as to the next steps and how Tokenholders can contact the Receivers to discuss any concerns and all aspects of their appointment,” the announcement stated. Prior to this announcement, the last post on the channel was made on January 2, before the $2.7 million hack.
Furthermore, the post mentioned that Interpath will conduct an investigation into the January hack and make efforts to recover investors’ funds.
Cointelegraph reached out to Interpath Limited via email to verify the authenticity of the announcement. In response, James Drury, the company’s director, confirmed that he personally made the post.
In the second announcement, posted on February 21, it was revealed that the Receivers now have full custody of the Treasury assets, which have been transferred to a new secure wallet. The previous wallet that held the funds has also been taken over, and all previous signers have been removed from the multisignature wallet. Additionally, the announcement stated that none of the old signers are involved in the new wallet, indicating that the HectorDAO team no longer has the authority to authorize transfers from the Treasury.
Interpath has been authorized by the court to identify, collect, and preserve HectorDAO assets, but it does not yet have the authority to distribute them. To distribute the funds, final approval from the court is required, as stated in the post.
In another incident in July, HectorDAO suffered a loss of over $8 million when some of its bridged tokens on Fantom became detached from their Ethereum collateral. This was a direct result of the $1.5 billion Multichain exploit, which led to the closure of the Multichan Fantom bridge on July 14. In the same month, the DAO voted to liquidate its Treasury and return funds to investors. However, as of now, most of the funds have not been distributed.