Specter of Ethereum Hard Fork Worries Australian Banking Group

Everywhere the ethereum community looks for a solution to the collapse of The DAO, obstacles lay in its path.

After news yesterday that a proposed soft fork solution carried with it a previously unidentified exploit, we're now seeing an example of the kinds of objections Ethereum may face if a proposed hard fork is implemented.

Speaking today at the Blockchain Summit in Melbourne, Australia, ANZ Banking Group’s executive manager, Nicholas Groves said that the incident has highlighted the importance of "who controls a public blockchain".

According to a Financial Review report, groves added:

"Had we been running something on ethereum that was not the DAO and everything got rolled back, we'd potentially lose two weeks of stuff and for a bank that's quite risky."

Concerns over a hard fork that would roll-back transactions to restore funds lost in the attack on the ethereum-based fund have been percolating since earlier this month, but the reaction by ANZ is the first we’ve seen by a global banking institution.

However, this isn’t the first time ANZ has expressed skepticism about the technology.

For example, in May, AMZ’s general manager of global digital technology, Christiain Vente, wrote an article on the company’s blog about nine reasons banks aren't using blockchain.

Image of AMZ ATMs via AMZ