Hassan Maishera
TL;DR
-
The Cardano blockchain was temporarily split into two, necessitating an emergency patch and a network-wide upgrade.
-
The network split was caused by a malformed transaction.
Cardano Blockchain Temporarily Splits Into Two
The Cardamo blockchain was temporarily split into two on Saturday due to a malformed transaction. The older and newer node versions of the blockchain validated transaction data submitted to the network differently.
According to the team behind the Cardano network, the mismatch caused some block producers to follow a “poisoned” chain while others stayed on the normal one. The team implemented an emergency patch and network-wide upgrade instructions.
The incident is currently being investigated as a potential cyberattack, but has been traced to a wallet belonging to a former testnet participant. The team added in its post-mortem report that the split emerged when newer nodes accepted a malformed transaction that older nodes rejected.
The report added that the inconsistency exploited a bug in an underlying software library whose validation logic failed to trap. After the bug was exploited, block producers began building on different branches of the chain.
Cardano developers immediately deployed patched node software, and operators were instructed to upgrade to rejoin the canonical chain.
Furthermore, exchanges and wallet providers paused deposits and withdrawals on the Cardano chain throughout the incident as a precaution. However, Intersect revealed that no user funds were lost, and most retail wallets were insulated because they relied on components that safely ignored the malformed transaction.
Cardano co-founder Charles Hoskinson has involved the authorities as he characterized the event as a targeted, premeditated attack by a disgruntled stake-pool operator who had been seeking ways “to harm the brand and reputation” of Input Output Global (IOG).
Hoskinson warned that the split affected all users, from block producers losing rewards to DeFi protocols encountering an inconsistent state. He added that restoring full network uniformity could take weeks.
ADA is up by 1% in the last 24 hours and is now trading above $0.41 per coin.
