Key Takeaways
A malformed transaction, now regarded as a cyber attack, caused a temporary chain split on the Cardano network on Friday, November 21.
A network upgrade was promptly implemented to fix the bug.
The attack led to a debate between Solana Labs founder Anatoly Yakovenko and the founder of Cardano, Charles Hoskinson, over whether to treat such incidents as federal crimes or not.
Following the attack, the Cardano (ADA) dipped, but the prompt response resulted in a brief rebound.
Currently, the token is hovering at around $0.4113.
Cardonao Faced a Temporary Chain Split Amid a Cyber Attack
A malformed transaction, now regarded as a cyber attack, caused a temporary chain split on the Cardano network on Friday, November 21. The chaos erupted when a former testnet user sent a broken, bad transaction that was correctly rejected by the older Cardano nodes, while the newer version accepted it. The mismatch led the chain to split into two competing chains briefly: a “poisoned” ledger containing the bad transaction and a “healthy” one without it. A network upgrade was promptly implemented to fix the bug. The exchanges temporarily paused transactions during the disruptions, and so far, no major loss has been reported.
The Event Causes Debate Over Involving the FBI in Blockchain Issues
The attack led to a debate between Solana Labs founder, Anatoly Yakovenko, and the founder of Cardano and CEO of IOHK (Input Output Hong Kong), Charles Hoskinson, over whether to treat such incidents as federal crimes or not. The former argued that such events should not warrant the involvement of agencies such as the FBI. In his post on X, Yakovenko stressed that blockchain bugs should be handled technically, not through federal intervention.
Authors: Barbara Liskov¹ and Leslie Lamport²
Abstract:
We present FedConsensus, a novel distributed consensus protocol that achieves Byzantine fault tolerance through active collaboration with the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Unlike traditional BFT…
— toly 🇺🇸 (@aeyakovenko) November 22, 2025
While Charles Hoskinson called the event a premeditated attack on his post on X, he shared yesterday. He further added that Blackhats exploiting bugs to cause harm to public infrastructure is not a new thing, and it is a federal crime because of the catastrophic harm to society that such acts could carry. He also mentioned that Cardano is a large network and that many people derive their entire livelihood from the network’s operation. The spat reflects the long-standing debate over the intervention of federal agencies in the governance of decentralized blockchain networks.
It was a premeditated attack by a disgruntled SPO with extensive knowledge of Cardano and who had already observed the testnet fork, the patch efforts, and was in direct contact with the core devs.
We spent hours studying it, reconstructing for mainnet, and then delegating to…
— Charles Hoskinson (@IOHK_Charles) November 23, 2025
How is Cardano (ADA) Faring Now?
The attack caused the token to dip 16%. The subsequent immediate response and resolution of the chain disruption boosted the investor confidence in the network, causing the token to rebound briefly.
As of today, Cardano (ADA) is currently trading around $0.4113. The market cap touched $14.8 billion. The 24-hour trading volume also increased by 20% reaching $687.8 million. The token is trading below the 200-day Simple Moving Average (SMA). The moving averages show persisting selling pressure. Besides, the MACD is also having a bearish crossover.
Nevertheless, the market oscillators indicate a building momentum. The 14-day Relative Strength Index (RSI) value has entered the oversold territory. Generally, such a scenario suggests the exhaustion of the selling pressure. Even so, if the token fails to hold the current zone, the next support level available is at 0.3895.
Also Read: Cardano Price Prediction: Can ADA Hold $0.50 Today, and What Will Cardano Be Worth in 2025?
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