Core DAO announced it is coordinating an emergency hard fork following an incident where validators claimed more CORE rewards than the blockchain was designed to issue. In a network update, Core stated that the issue has been contained and that malicious validators can no longer draw excess rewards.
The upcoming hard fork is designed as a forward upgrade. According to the project, the update will not roll back the network or reverse any previously confirmed transactions.
An earlier status update released on Monday revealed that a small number of validators accrued rewards significantly above the protocol's intended issuance levels. Core emphasized that the incident was strictly limited to reward issuance, user assets remained safe, and a technical postmortem would be published.
In response to the incident, several cryptocurrency exchanges restricted CORE network transfers. Coinbase paused sends and receives on the Core network, while Bithumb and Coinone suspended deposits and withdrawals due to suspected or confirmed security concerns.
Additionally, Bitget suspended CORE deposits and withdrawals citing wallet maintenance, and LBank halted deposits based on the project's requirements.
As of publication, Core has not disclosed the total amount of CORE issued, the duration of the activity, whether the additional tokens entered circulation, or the specific vulnerability that allowed the validators to obtain the excess rewards.
