The problem is that building in an ability to roll-back transactions, to retroactively “fix” the hack, requires violating and even changing foundations that cryptocurrencies are built on: namely decentralization and trusted peers. I’m not an expert in Etherum, but I know that at a minimum any sort of roll back would require a 51% consensus, and like the article said, by the time this consensus is reached, too much of the stolen money would have already been in circulation. For them to reverse it at that point would essentially be robbing the legitimate contracts that accepted the stolen currency.
Instead I think we need a different model. If money is stolen from your bank, the FDIC insures the losses (up to a certain amount). If loss of a wallet is going to be a significant concern for cryptocurrencies, then we need a marketplace solution, likely in the form of some sort of insurance. Etereum is the perfect model for this source of insurance, and unlike the FDIC, it can be completely decentralized. A simple policy could collect premiums for a specified payout amount, and then trigger the payout if a given number of peers agree that an attack has taken place. While this doesn’t increase the surface space for attackers, it does greatly mitigate the risk of creating and powering contracts. If I have a live contract backed by $30 million in Ether, I would gladly pay a daily premium to keep that money safe.
