Cardano Attack Sparks Clash: Hoskinson Invokes Feds, Solana Chief Objects

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Ah, the drama of the blockchain world! On November 21, 2025, Cardano’s mainnet suffered an almost unheard-of chain partition. A malformed staking-delegation transaction danced its way into the system, exploiting a bug that’s been around for who knows how long. The result? A “poisoned” branch and a healthy one, both valiantly pumping out blocks until the emergency node upgrades came to the rescue. But fear not, dear reader, for no funds were lost, and the CIP-135 disaster recovery plan remained safely tucked away in case of a worse catastrophe. All was well… for now. 😅

Should Cardano’s Attacker Face The Feds? 🔥

The real show started when Cardano’s beloved founder, Charles Hoskinson, clashed with Solana’s Anatoly Yakovenko over whether the incident warranted federal attention. How very dramatic, like two old schoolmates fighting over the last piece of cake.

Yakovenko, in his usual zen-like approach, casually praised the Cardano protocol, even after it suffered from a bug-induced fiasco. “I’m gonna go out on a limb,” he said, “and say this is pretty cool. Nakamoto-style consensus without proof of work is extremely hard to build. The protocol functioned as designed in the presence of bugs.” This was a true masterstroke of diplomacy! Hoskinson, however, simply replied, “Thanks, man. It was a wild day.”

But then it took a spicy turn. Yakovenko, a man of principle, argued that such “exploit traffic” is the cost of running a permissionless network. “Communicating arbitrary bits is fundamentally speech,” he claimed. “The fact that it’s not always the case in the US is lame. Don’t send the feds after the poor guy who f’d up vulnerability disclosure.” Now that’s some next-level shrugging off responsibility. 🙄

Not one to let such things slide, Hoskinson shot back, declaring that this wasn’t a disclosure issue but a full-blown attack. According to him, this wasn’t some innocent bug discovery; it was a premeditated act by a disgruntled SPO who knew the system well enough to make the chain behave like a petulant child throwing a tantrum. “We spent hours studying it… then delegating to my personal pool Rats as a message. He only admitted this act after I doxed him in a video,” Hoskinson said. That’s one way to get someone to own up to their mistakes! 😏

According to Hoskinson, this was no ordinary network hiccup-this was the work of a blackhat exploiting bugs in public infrastructure, which, in his view, crossed the line into criminal territory. “Cardano is a large network, and many people depend on it. This guy hurt every single person in our ecosystem.” So, let’s call it what it is: a grand crime, if you ask him. 🚨

Yakovenko, ever the pragmatic soul, argued that calling in the feds was like inviting the fire department to a candle-lit dinner. He acknowledged the blackhat’s nastiness but cautioned that escalating the situation legally could be a “huge pia” for the whole industry. “We need multiple implementations and formal verification to minimize the risk,” Yakovenko philosophized. A little more engineering, a little less drama. Sounds reasonable… unless you’re Hoskinson. 💼

Hoskinson didn’t back down. He brought up the stakes for regulated finance and cross-chain norms. “What about financial entities on Solana?” he asked. “Should they just suck it up if hackers exploit a vulnerability and cause massive losses?” His hypothetical situation left Yakovenko scrambling for a solution. And guess what? Yakovenko’s remedy was, in his words, “We have to make it impossible.” Good luck with that, Anatoly. 🔧

The plot thickened when Intersect’s report revealed that the wallet responsible for the attack had been identified and the FBI was now involved. Yes, it seems our lovely blockchain world is about to get a little less wild and a lot more… legal. The immediate story was a chain mishap that was quickly patched up. But the bigger story? A philosophical battle over whether a bug in a permissionless system is a matter for protocol design-or the long arm of the law. And let’s not forget, this little debate is happening in the middle of a massive cross-chain clash between Cardano and Solana. Talk about setting a precedent! ⚖️

And as for ADA’s price, well, it’s sitting comfortably at $0.41 at press time. Will the drama send it up? Or will the legal wranglings keep it stuck in the mud? Only time will tell… ⏳

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2025-11-24 10:52