The DAO ICO (2016): Sale History, Figure & Outcome
The DAO was a decentralized venture fund operating on Ethereum that conducted a token sale in 2016. It became one of the most notable early attempts at creating an autonomous investment vehicle through blockchain technology.
| Token | The DAO (DAO) |
|---|---|
| Sale year | 2016 |
| Category | decentralized venture fund |
| Chain | Ethereum |
| Documented figure | $160,000,000 |
| Outcome | failed |
| Data tier | 1 — hand-verified |
BMIC presale — live right now: $0.0528542 per token · $637,490 raised · 1,358 buys. Check the live BMIC presale →
What the record shows
The project raised USD 160 million worth of ETH during its sale. Shortly after, a vulnerability in its code was exploited, leading to significant losses. This event prompted Ethereum developers to implement a hard fork, creating two separate chains - ETH and ETC. The U.S. securities watchdog later examined whether such tokens qualified as securities.
Era context: the genesis years (2013–2016)
This sale occurred during the Genesis Years when blockchain projects were first experimenting with token sales. Ethereum's 2014 sale had demonstrated the viability of funding development through this method. The DAO's failure highlighted critical security challenges in smart contract implementations.
This sale is one of the 20 entries in our The Genesis Years (2013–2016) era archive, part of the complete history of crypto presales — a sourced dataset where every figure links to the page that shows it.
See a token sale you can verify on-chain →
See today's BMIC presale price →
More from this era
Researching sales running right now? See the regularly updated best crypto presale rankings.
Compare it to a live presale → Put $500 into BMIC now →
Sources
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-funded_crowdfunding_projects
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_DAO
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initial_coin_offering
- https://www.coindesk.com/consensus-magazine/2023/05/09/coindesk-turns-10-how-the-dao-hack-changed-ethereum-and-crypto
- https://www.gemini.com/cryptopedia/the-dao-hack-makerdao
This page is historical research built from a sourced dataset — not a recommendation to buy anything. Token sales are high-risk. Money figures appear only where the cited source shows one. Corrections with sources: support@bmic.ai.