Core DAO Moves to Emergency Hard Fork Over Excess Validator Rewards

Core DAO plans an emergency hard fork after a small group of validators received more CORE rewards than the protocol was designed to issue, as multiple crypto exchanges restricted CORE transfers around the time of the incident.

In an update, Core said the excess reward activity has been contained and that validators it called “malicious” can no longer obtain additional rewards through the issue. The project had earlier described the problem as limited to reward issuance and said user assets were not at risk.

The planned upgrade will apply prospectively, leaving the blockchain and all previously confirmed transactions unchanged.

Exchanges Restrict CORE Deposits and Withdrawals

Exchange operators took different measures in response to the incident. Coinbase temporarily disabled transfers to and from the Core network around the time the reward problem surfaced. South Korean trading platforms Coinone and Bithumb also suspended CORE deposits and withdrawals, citing security-related concerns in their notices.

Other trading platforms imposed restrictions for different stated reasons. Bitget attributed its suspension of CORE deposits and withdrawals to wallet maintenance, while LBank said it halted deposits at the project’s request.

Scale and Cause of Reward Issue Remain Unclear

Although Core says the incident has been contained, key details about its scope remain undisclosed. The project has yet to quantify the additional CORE issued or disclose how long the abnormal reward activity persisted. It also has not said whether tokens generated through the incident subsequently entered circulation.

Core has not provided technical details explaining the vulnerability that allowed validators to collect the additional rewards. The project said it plans to release a postmortem addressing the incident.

Meanwhile, CORE’s price stood at $0.0205 as of this writing, down 4.1% over the past 24 hours and 19.5% over seven days.