Maker of first Ethereum Wallet Taylor Monahan Explains $10M Hack and How to Stay Safe in Crypto

Taylor Monahan is the founder of MyCrypto, an Ethereum wallet, and today she’s helping build MetaMask. As part of her job, as become a full-time blockchain detective. She’s also a character in my book, The Infinite Machine! She’s the first one who alerted us to the fact that in the past several months, a mysterious hack has taken over crypto wallets, draining $10 million worth of ether from OGs in the space. We begin our conversation with Taylor breaking down the hack from the beginning and also the latest in this saga. Then we go over her own, long history in the space, she gives risk management advice for crypto users and developers, and ponders some deep questions on whether code is law and whether DeFi should really be immutable.

00:00 Intro
00:51 Cryptocurrency Wallet Hackers: An Organized and Sophisticated Operation
12:58 Taylor’s Background
26:19 The "Code is Law" Argument
35:01 Why Mainstream Adoption Is Not Yet Feasible
38:24 Advice for Crypto Users and Developers
48:53 Account Abstraction and Authorization Levels
53:49 Crypto and User Behavior: Adapting to Change and Empowering Users