Core DAO is coordinating an emergency hard fork after validators reportedly claimed more CORE rewards than the blockchain was designed to issue.
In an update, Core said the incident had been contained and that “malicious validators” could no longer withdraw excess rewards. The upgrade will be forward-compatible, meaning it will not roll back the network or reverse previously confirmed transactions, the project said.
CORE reward issuance incident
The announcement followed an earlier status update on Monday, when Core said a small number of validators had accumulated rewards significantly above the protocol’s intended issuance. The project said the incident was limited to reward issuance and that user assets remained safe. It also said it would publish a technical postmortem.
Several cryptocurrency exchanges restricted CORE transfers around the time of the incident. Coinbase paused sends and receives on the Core network, while Bithumb and Coinone suspended deposits and withdrawals, citing suspected or confirmed security concerns.
Bitget also suspended CORE deposits and withdrawals, citing wallet maintenance. LBank suspended deposits because of what it described as the project’s requirements.
Core has not disclosed how much CORE was issued, how long the activity continued or whether any of the additional tokens entered circulation. The project has also not explained the vulnerability that enabled the validators to obtain the excess rewards.
Core reiterated that it would publish a technical postmortem. Cointelegraph contacted Core for further information but had not received a response by publication.
