SecondFi hack forces Cardano firm to give up running TOKEN2049

Cardano co-founder Emurgo has been forced to hand over the running of self-styled “world’s largest crypto event” TOKEN2049 to the Cardano Foundation, following the $20 million hack of its neo-finance platform SecondFi.

That’s according to Intersect, Cardano’s governance firm, which made the announcement on Tuesday.

Intersect stated that Emurgo “is unable to allocate the necessary resources to plan and execute Token2049.”

Emurgo added, “Following the recent SecondFi incident, we have confirmed that our priority right now must be solely the recovery of assets for all affected users.”

The Cardano Foundation said, “In addition to the Cardano booth, we are also organizing the side event CardanoxDraperxBitcoin funded by Draper and Cardano Foundation. More information will be available soon.”

Cardano users had already voted to cancel the Cardano annual summit in Singapore that was scheduled for October 2026.

The vote, held last month, also passed a proposal from Emurgo to attend and sponsor TOKEN2049 in Singapore this October.

SecondFi is eating into Emurgo’s responsibilities

Emurgo also stepped down last week from the “Pentad,” an executive body made up of multiple Cardano firms.

It said, “Our immediate priority is the @secondfiapp recovery process, and we are concentrating our resources where they are needed most.”

SecondFi was hacked for $2.4 million worth of $ADA last June. Emurgo used emergency measures at the time to take $18.5 million worth of $ADA from users as part of a mysterious white hat hack event.

The mystery stemmed from Cardano’s founder, Charles Hoskinson, who later relayed information that suggested the identity of the white hat hacker was unknown.

In early July, SecondFi claimed that these white hat hack funds “are currently protected and accessible,” and that they will “form part of the recovery effort to return assets to affected users.”

SecondFi also announced that it will shut down and dedicate its time to the recovery of stolen assets going forward.

Protos has reached out to Cardano Summit organizers for comment and will update this piece should we hear back.