Core DAO Plans Emergency Hard Fork After Validator Reward Failure

Core DAO is coordinating an emergency hard fork after a small group of validators obtained block rewards above the protocol’s intended issuance, leaving unanswered questions over how much excess CORE was created and whether any of it entered circulation.

The project said on September 1 that the issue had been contained and validators it described as malicious could no longer draw excess rewards. Its latest update said the hard fork will deploy a permanent fix as a forward upgrade rather than rolling the blockchain back, meaning previously confirmed transactions will not be reversed. Core maintains that user assets remain safe.

Update: the issue is contained and the malicious validators can no longer draw excess rewards.

We’re now coordinating an emergency hardfork with validators to deploy the permanent fix. This is a forward upgrade, not a rollback.

Assets remain safe. Full post-mortem to follow. https://t.co/0sJOJf4Qco

— Core DAO 🔶 (@Coredao_Org) September 1, 2026

Core initially disclosed the reward problem on August 31, saying a small number of validators were accruing rewards above the level the protocol was designed to issue. At that stage, it said the root cause had been identified and that the incident affected reward issuance rather than network security or custody of funds.

Excess CORE issuance remains unquantified

The project has not disclosed how many validators exploited the issue, how long the abnormal reward claims continued or the amount of CORE involved. It has also not explained the technical flaw that allowed the excess rewards to accrue.

Those omissions leave the token-supply impact unresolved. Core’s validator rewards include newly issued CORE alongside transaction fees, so determining whether the incident created additional supply beyond the scheduled issuance—or instead affected the timing or accounting of rewards—will depend on the project’s forthcoming technical analysis.

Coinbase has meanwhile paused Core transfers, preventing sends and receives on the network while leaving buys, sells, conversions and fiat transactions available. The restriction remained listed as an active incident on the exchange’s status page as of September 2.

Core has not announced an activation time for the emergency fork or a required validator software version. It said a full post-mortem will follow, which is expected to provide the first detailed accounting of the vulnerability and the excess rewards generated during the incident.