Core DAO is coordinating an emergency hard fork after some validators claimed CORE rewards exceeding the protocol's intended issuance. In a statement, Core said the situation is under control, and the "malicious validators" can no longer claim excess rewards. The fork is a forward upgrade and will not roll back the network or revert any confirmed transactions.
Several exchanges have restricted CORE transfers following the incident. Coinbase suspended deposits and withdrawals on the Core network, while Bithumb and Coinone also halted CORE deposits and withdrawals. Bitget paused transfers citing wallet maintenance, and LBank suspended deposits at the request of the project team.
Core has not disclosed the total amount of excess CORE issued, the duration of the activity, or whether additional tokens entered circulation. It also did not specify the vulnerability that allowed validators to receive the extra rewards. In a status update on Monday, Core noted that a small number of validators had accumulated rewards significantly higher than the protocol's expected issuance, but emphasized that the issue was limited to the reward distribution mechanism and that user funds remained safe. Core promised to publish a technical post-mortem report. Cointelegraph contacted Core for further details but did not receive a response by press time.