Charles Hoskinson Lauds Cardano Network’s Design After Surviving A “Poisoned” Transaction Attack

Charles Hoskinson was full of praise for the Cardano network’s full recovery after an unexpected attack caused a temporary chain split. The project’s engineers swiftly resolved the situation.

Cardano Recovers After Chain Split

The Cardano (ADA) blockchain suffered a rare chain split, which was caused by a malformed delegation transaction that exploited a software flaw. 

According to an incident report from Cardano ecosystem’s governance organization Intersect, the attack started after the malformed transaction passed validation on newer node versions, but nodes running older software rejected it.

“This exploited a bug in an underlying software library that was not trapped by validation code,” Intersect said. “The execution of this transaction caused a divergence in the blockchain, effectively splitting the network into two distinct chains: one containing the ‘poisoned’ transaction and a ‘healthy’ chain without it.”

Developers and engineers coordinated an emergency response, and operators were urged to upgrade nodes to version 10.5.3, essentially converging the network back to a single chain.

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Earlier that day, Cardano co-founder Charles Hoskinson posted on X that it was a “premeditated attack from a disgruntled [stake pool operator]” who was “actively looking at ways to harm the brand and reputation of [Cardano developer Input/Output Global].”

According to Hoskinson, all Cardano users were impacted, and it will likely take weeks to clean up the mess. The FBI has been contacted to investigate the event as a potential cyberattack. 

“Cardano is a family, and sometimes we fight and sometimes we have bad days and good days. And it’s not lost on me how difficult 2025 has been for us all,” said Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson in a video message. “The network survived. It didn’t stop.”

Attacker Issues Public Apology

Shortly after the incident, an X user going by the name Homer J. admitted they were responsible for submitting the transaction that triggered the temporary split.

“Sorry Cardano folks, it was me who endangered the network with my careless action yesterday evening,” he opined, describing the attempt as a personal challenge to reproduce the “bad transaction,” and revealed he relied on AI-generated instructions while blocking traffic on his server.

“I’ve felt awful as soon as I realized the scale of what I’ve caused. I know there’s nothing I can do to make up for all the pain and stress I’ve caused over the past X hours,” Homer continued. “Difficult to quantify the negligence on my behalf. I am sorry, I truly am. I didn’t have evil intentions.”

Nonetheless, Hoskinson is not buying the apology, claiming the perpetrator is now trying to apologize after learning that the FBI is now involved.

Homer claims he did not sell or short ADA, did not work with anyone else, and did not act for financial gain. “I’m ashamed of my carelessness and take full responsibility for it and whatever consequences will follow,” he posited.