Core DAO plans emergency hard fork after validators drew excess rewards
Core DAO announced an emergency hard fork following a protocol bug that allowed validators to draw more rewards than intended. Coinbase and four other exchanges restricted CORE transfers. The network will execute a forward upgrade without rolling back transactions.
A bug in Core DAO's validator reward mechanism allowed validators to obtain more rewards than the protocol intended, prompting the network to plan an emergency hard fork. Cointelegraph reported the incident on September 2.
Coinbase and four other exchanges restricted CORE transfers in response to the validator reward miscalculation. Core stated the incident is contained and said its planned forward upgrade will not roll back the network or reverse previously confirmed transactions.
The approach contrasts with historical network interventions that reversed transactions after bugs or exploits. By proceeding without rollback, Core is testing whether contained protocol flaws can be remedied through forward upgrades alone, preserving the immutability of the ledger while fixing the underlying mechanism.
Validators obtained excess rewards from a protocol bug; Core plans to address it via hard fork without network rollback or reversing confirmed transactions.
The execution of Core's hard fork and whether it successfully prevents similar reward bugs will indicate whether forward upgrades can reliably contain validator-level protocol flaws without transaction reversal.
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