Bitcoin staking platform b14g suffered an exploit on October 31, 2026, draining 97 million CORE tokens valued at $1.47 million. The attacker exploited a contract bug that treated zero-value withdrawal requests as total balance releases. Core Fork recovered roughly 68.15 million tokens (70%), while exchanges froze another 9 million tokens. Staked Bitcoin remained secure on-chain, but user repayment plans remain unannounced.
Stolen token tracing and recovery
- ▪Blockchain analytics traced stolen CORE tokens moving through wallets connected to infrastructure at Bybit, Gate.io, and MEXC following the October 31, 2026 b14g exploit.
- ▪Cryptocurrency exchange partners froze approximately 9 million stolen CORE tokens linked to the attacker following coordination with b14g.
- ▪Core Fork recovered approximately CORE tokens following the October 31, 2026 exploit of Bitcoin staking platform b14g, representing roughly 70% of the affected tokens.
Exploit details and mechanism
- ▪Bitcoin staking platform b14g suffered an exploit that resulted in the unauthorized withdrawal of 97 million CORE tokens valued at $1.47 million
- ▪An attacker drained 91 staking positions in a single transaction on October 31, 2026, by submitting 99 zero-value withdrawal requests against unbacked staking positions on b14g.
- ▪The contract logic exploited in the October 31, 2026 b14g breach had been active for approximately 17 months prior to the incident without requiring administrator key compromises.
- ▪Core's underlying staking contract contains logic that interprets a withdrawal request for zero tokens as an instruction to release the entire staked balance of a position.
B14g incident response
- ▪b14g pledged to publish a post-mortem detailing the technical cause of the October 31, 2026 exploit, but has not yet disclosed a compensation plan for affected depositors.
- ▪b14g paused its affected staking contracts at 10:35 UTC on October 31, 2026, approximately 66 minutes after the initial exploit occurred.
Impact on Core network and Bitcoin
- ▪Bitcoin deposited through b14g was unaffected by the October 31, 2026 exploit, remaining time-locked on the Bitcoin blockchain.
- ▪Core DAO confirmed that CORE tokens staked directly with network validators or through other third-party protocols were not impacted by the b14g exploit.
- ▪Core DAO stated that its consensus mechanism, validators, and core network operated normally during and after the October 31, 2026 b14g exploit.
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