Ether Withdrawals Slow as Millions in DAO Funds Remain Unclaimed

Millions of dollars worth of ether remain unclaimed from a smart contract established for the purpose of allowing investors in The DAO to recover funds compromised in the project's demise.

Of the 11.6m ETH moved to the contract by way of a change to the underlying ethereum platform's code earlier this week, just over half (about 60%) of the funds, or about 6.85m ETH, have so far been withdrawn.

The remaining 4.75m ETH, worth about $68m at today's USD exchange rate, continues to be available to potential investors. However, the withdrawal rate, at press time, seems to have slowed noticeably.

Within hours of the hard fork more than 40% of the 11.58m ether had been withdrawn, leaving 6.6m in the account, according to figures from CoinDesk. Twenty-four hours later, 5.2m remained.

At press time, roughly 60% of the total funds have been withdrawn, up from 52% observed yesterday.

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The number of withdrawals seems, at press time, to follow a similar pattern.

More than 5,000 withdrawals were made at the end of the first day funds were available. This was followed by a similarly strong 6,430 withdrawals on 21st June.

However, data from 22nd June suggests just 1,215 contract withdrawals were initiated today.

Should each withdrawal represent a single DAO investor, this would mean that just over 12,500 investors, or half of the roughly 23,500 investors, have so far received funds. It is, however, likely that some investors manage multiple addresses.

Representatives from the ethereum development community state the funds are expected to stay in that account until they are withdrawn.

Pete Rizzo contributed reporting.

Piggy bank image via Shutterstock