Core DAO to hard fork after validators drew excess rewards

Core DAO is coordinating an emergency hard fork after several validators claimed CORE rewards beyond the blockchain’s intended issuance. The project described the upgrade as a forward change that will not roll back the chain or reverse any previously confirmed transactions. Core reported the incident has been contained and added that “malicious validators” could no longer draw excess rewards.

An earlier status update from Core said a small number of validators accrued rewards significantly above the protocol’s intended issuance and that the problem was limited to reward distribution. The update noted user assets remain safe and pledged a technical postmortem to explain the root cause and corrective actions.

A number of exchanges restricted CORE transfers while the issue was investigated. Coinbase paused sends and receives on the Core network. South Korean exchanges Bithumb and Coinone suspended deposits and withdrawals, citing suspected or confirmed security concerns. Bitget suspended CORE deposits and withdrawals for wallet maintenance, and LBank suspended deposits referencing the project’s requirements.

Core has not disclosed how many extra CORE tokens were created, how long the activity continued, or whether any of the additional tokens entered circulation. The project also has not released technical details about the vulnerability or the mechanism that allowed validators to claim excess issuance. Core did not provide further information when contacted.

The planned emergency hard fork is a forward upgrade, which will change protocol rules going forward rather than revert past blocks. Validators, which propose and validate blocks and receive issuance rewards, were the entities affected by the reward-distribution issue according to Core’s statements.

Core has not provided a timetable for the hard fork or for publication of the postmortem. Network participants and exchanges are expected to monitor the project’s updates for instructions on any node upgrades or other operational changes required to support the forward upgrade.