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Core DAO Orders Forward-Only Hard Fork to Patch Validator Reward Exploit

Core says the upgrade will stop a flaw that let a small group of validators claim excess CORE.

Overview

  • Core has contained the incident and is coordinating an emergency, forward-only hard fork with validators to permanently patch the reward-distribution vulnerability.
  • The planned upgrade will not roll back blocks or reverse confirmed transactions, so any tokens already recorded on-chain will remain in place.
  • Several exchanges, including Coinbase, Bithumb, Coinone, LBank, and Bitget, have paused or restricted CORE transfers while they wait for coordination and technical details.
  • Core has not disclosed how many extra CORE tokens were issued, how many validators were involved, or whether any excess tokens entered circulation, and it says a full technical postmortem will follow.
  • The flaw affects Core’s Satoshi Plus validator scoring, which can route up to about 90% of newly minted tokens to validators, raising unresolved questions about token supply under the network’s 2.1 billion CORE cap and potential market effects.