Core Completes Hard Fork to Resolve Reward Issuance Issue

Emergency Upgrade Seals Validator Exploit

@Coredao_org has completed a hard fork of version v1.0.26 on its mainnet, bringing a formal close to a serious vulnerability in the network's reward issuance system. The upgrade was executed without transaction rollbacks or any loss of user funds, according to the Core team.

The incident first came to light on August 31, 2026, when Core disclosed that a small number of validators were accruing block rewards significantly above the amount intended under the protocol. Following further investigation, the project reclassified the behavior as explicitly malicious rather than an accidental windfall, with a limited number of validators having figured out how to exploit the reward distribution mechanism to claim tokens beyond the protocol's intended issuance schedule.

Core moved quickly to contain the damage. By September 1, the team confirmed that malicious validators could no longer draw excess rewards, and coordination with the broader validator set began to deploy the permanent fix.

Supply Impact and What Comes Next

As a direct consequence of the fix, the hard fork permanently reduces the total supply of $CORE by more than 150 million tokens through protocol-level burning. The Core team confirmed the upgrade is a forward-only change, meaning no previously confirmed transactions were reversed and the network's existing state remains intact.

Staking rewards are expected to normalize within 48 hours of the completed fork. The project had described the problem throughout as limited to reward issuance and said user assets were not at risk. A full technical postmortem is still pending.

The episode also triggered a broader market response. Coinbase paused $CORE sends and receives on August 31, 2026, though trading of the token continued on the platform, and other exchanges also moved to restrict deposits and withdrawals while the situation was being resolved.

Sources:
CORE transfers halted on exchanges as Core DAO prepares emergency fork (crypto.news)
Core DAO plans emergency hard fork after validators draw excess rewards (Crypto Briefing)
Core DAO Moves to Emergency Hard Fork Over Excess Validator Rewards (The Crypto Basic)