Core DAO plans emergency hard fork after validators extract excess CORE rewards

Core DAO is coordinating an emergency hard fork after a small group of malicious validators exploited a flaw in the Satoshi Plus consensus scoring system to claim excess CORE rewards. While Core DAO maintains that user assets are safe and that the forward-only upgrade will not roll back transactions, the incident has prompted major exchanges like Coinbase, Bithumb, and Coinone to restrict CORE transfers. The exact volume of excess tokens minted remains undisclosed, raising supply concerns.

Validator reward exploit incident

• ▪Core DAO has not publicly disclosed the exact volume of excess CORE tokens minted, the number of validators involved, or how long the exploit continued.
• ▪Core DAO labeled the behavior of the validators who extracted excess rewards as explicitly malicious rather than an accidental windfall.
• ▪A small group of Core blockchain validators exploited a flaw in the network's reward distribution mechanism to claim CORE rewards above the protocol's intended issuance.

Emergency hard fork response

• ▪Core DAO stated that user assets, network security, and custody systems remain safe and unaffected by the reward issuance incident.
• ▪The planned emergency hard fork is a forward-only upgrade that will not roll back the Core network or reverse previously confirmed transactions.
• ▪Core DAO is coordinating an emergency hard fork with its validator set to permanently patch the reward distribution vulnerability.

Exchange trading restrictions

• ▪Coinbase paused CORE token sends and receives on August 31, 2026, while keeping trading functions like buys, sells, and conversions active.
• ▪Bitget suspended CORE deposits and withdrawals citing wallet maintenance, while LBank suspended deposits due to Core project requirements.
• ▪South Korean exchanges Bithumb and Coinone suspended CORE deposits and withdrawals, citing security concerns surrounding the Core network.

CORE token supply impact

• ▪The CORE token has a hard supply cap of 2.1 billion tokens, with approximately 40% allocated to node mining rewards over an 81-year emission schedule.
• ▪Traders face uncertainty regarding CORE's actual supply dynamics because Core DAO has not disclosed whether any of the excess tokens entered circulation or reached the market.

Satoshi Plus consensus mechanism

• ▪Core's Satoshi Plus consensus mechanism combines delegated proof-of-work with delegated proof-of-stake to distribute up to 90% of newly minted CORE tokens to selected validators.
• ▪The complexity of the Satoshi Plus scoring formula creates a larger attack surface than simpler consensus designs, which contributed to the reward distribution vulnerability.

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