Key facts
- Ravencoin is attempting to roll back four days of transactions due to a critical software flaw.
- Attackers exploited a vulnerability allowing invalid blocks to be added to the blockchain.
- Two major mining pools, 2Miners and RavenMiner, are rebuilding the chain from before the exploit.
- This action could erase completed payments and leave users with missing transactions.
- Ravencoin's price (RVN) dropped 17% in 24 hours.
- Exchanges like Bitvavo and Upbit have halted deposits and withdrawals.
Ravencoin is facing a potential rollback of four days of transactions following the exploitation of a critical software flaw that allowed invalid blocks to be added to its blockchain. Two major mining pools, 2Miners and RavenMiner, which together control most of the network's computing power, are rebuilding the chain starting from block 4,487,775, the last valid block before the exploit occurred on August 7. This action could result in the erasure of completed payments and missing transactions for users and exchanges.
The vulnerability allowed invalid blocks to be incorporated into the blockchain, and while Ravencoin has since released a fix, it does not undo the transactions already recorded. The project stated it asked the pools to restart from a more recent point to minimize the history at risk, but they declined. The network's consensus mechanism dictates that the version of the record with the most computing power behind it is considered real, giving significant control to the mining pools in this situation.
In response to the turmoil, the price of Ravencoin's native token, RVN, dropped 17% over 24 hours to approximately $0.0029, with its market value falling to around $48 million. Trading volume stood at $10 million. Several exchanges have halted deposits and withdrawals for RVN as a precaution. Bitvavo suspended these services, citing the exploited vulnerability, while South Korea's Upbit placed an investment warning on RVN and also stopped transactions. Ravencoin advised exchanges and services not to assume that transactions wiped out by the rollback will return automatically and recommended suspending deposits and withdrawals until the network settles on a single, accepted version of the chain.
This is not the first time Ravencoin has faced a significant exploit. In 2020, attackers exploited a flaw that allowed for the creation of approximately 31 million extra RVN tokens beyond the allowed limit before the issue was fixed.