Ravencoin Faces Possible Four-Day Rollback After Critical Block Flaw

Ravencoin could erase several days of recent transactions after attackers exploited a critical software flaw that allowed invalid blocks to be added to the network. According to CoinDesk, the first bad block appeared on Aug. 7 at block height 4,487,776, and two major mining pools are now building an alternative chain from the prior block.

The development matters because a blockchain rollback can affect payments, deposits and withdrawals that users believed were already completed. If enough miners support the replacement chain, transactions recorded after the flaw appeared could be removed from Ravencoin’s accepted history, creating uncertainty for exchanges, services and users.

The pools involved, 2Miners and RavenMiner, reportedly control most of Ravencoin’s computing power and are rebuilding from block 4,487,775. Ravencoin’s project team said it had asked the pools to restart from a more recent point to reduce the amount of history at risk, but the pools declined.

Ravencoin has released a fix for the software issue, but the update does not automatically resolve the invalid blocks already written to the chain. The project warned exchanges and services not to assume affected deposits or withdrawals would be restored on their own and advised suspending both until the network settles on one version of events.

Some trading venues have already reacted. Bitvavo suspended RVN deposits and withdrawals as a precaution, while South Korea’s Upbit placed an investment warning on RVN markets and also halted deposits. CoinDesk reported that RVN fell 17% over 24 hours to about $0.0029 amid the disruption.