Cardano Suffers Temporary Chain Split After Malformed Transaction
Cardano briefly split into two chains on Friday after a malformed transaction was handled differently by older and newer node versions, creating a network divergence.
Intersect, the Cardano governance body, reported that newer nodes accepted the malformed transaction while older nodes rejected it. This exposed a bug in the underlying software library, causing some block producers to build on a “poisoned” chain while others continued on the canonical “healthy” chain.
The wallet linked to the transaction belonged to a former testnet participant, and the incident is under investigation as a potential cyberattack. Developers quickly released patched node software, and operators were instructed to upgrade to restore the network.
Exchanges and wallet providers paused deposits and withdrawals as a precaution. Intersect confirmed that no user funds were lost, and most retail wallets were unaffected because they safely ignored the malformed transaction.
Cardano co-founder Charles Hoskinson called the event a targeted attack by a disgruntled stake-pool operator aiming to harm Input Output Global (IOG). He noted that the disruption affected block producers losing rewards and DeFi protocols experiencing inconsistent states, cautioning that full network recovery could take weeks.
