For a few tense hours on November 21st, the Cardano blockchain had two heads. A network prized for its methodical, academic approach to development suddenly found itself split in two. It was the first major partition in its eight-year history. But the technical glitch, as messy as it was, was quickly overshadowed by a very human drama. A developer’s public apology was met with a founder’s public accusation, and the threat of federal investigators.
- Cardano experienced its first major network split due to a single, malformed transaction that caused newer and older nodes to disagree on validity. This technical glitch halted major exchange operations and DeFi protocols for several hours.
- A developer claimed responsibility, citing a careless experiment involving AI-generated instructions on a testnet that went live. However, Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson publicly labeled the event a premeditated attack and involved federal authorities.
- The founder’s decision to involve the FBI caused immediate cultural fallout, leading to the resignation of an IOG employee over fears that legitimate security testing could lead to legal repercussions. The incident highlighted the tension between open-source curiosity and the need to protect high-value decentralized systems.
The whole affair has since sparked a firestorm of debate. It touches on everything from the ethics of security testing to the culture of open-source development. When does a careless experiment become a criminal act? And what happens when a community built on code has to confront the messy reality of human error and intent?
This wasn’t just a bug. It was a mirror held up to the entire crypto world.
The Day the Ledger Split
The trouble began with a single, cleverly crafted transaction. Around 8:00 UTC, someone sent a malformed delegation request across the network. Think of it as a letter with a strange address. Newer Cardano nodes, running updated software, saw the strange address and let it pass. Older nodes, however, recognized it as invalid and rejected it outright.
This disagreement was the spark. A blockchain’s core promise is a single, shared source of truth. With nodes disagreeing on which transactions were valid, that single truth fractured. The network split into two competing chains, each one building its own version of history.
According to a report from Intersect, an ecosystem organization, the network never fully stalled. Blocks were still being produced on both chains. But for anyone trying to actually use Cardano, things got weird. Exchanges like Coinbase, Kraken, and Upbit slammed the brakes on ADA deposits and withdrawals. Coinbase kept its doors shut for about 14 hours, waiting to see which chain would win.
Block explorers, the windows into the blockchain, either froze or showed conflicting data. DeFi protocols were caught in a state of limbo. Imagine a smart contract executing on one chain while the transaction that triggered it landed on the other. Confirmation times, usually a matter of seconds, stretched into minutes or simply failed. The $14 billion network was, for a time, talking to itself in two different languages.
Behind the scenes, a rapid response was underway. Teams from Input Output Global (IOG), the Cardano Foundation, Intersect, and EMURGO worked together. They deployed emergency patches within three hours. By the next day, the network had healed itself through its natural consensus mechanism, converging back into a single chain. The price of ADA, Cardano’s native token, had tumbled as much as 16% before starting a slow recovery.
The technical crisis was over. The human one was just beginning.
An Apology and an Accusation
As the community tried to make sense of the split, a user on X named “Homer J” stepped forward. He claimed responsibility. But his confession didn’t sound like a malicious hacker bragging about their conquest. It sounded like someone who had made a very big, very public mistake.
“It started off as a ‘let’s see if I can reproduce the bad transaction’ personal challenge,” he wrote. He explained he was then “dumb enough to rely on AI’s instructions on how to block all traffic in/out of my Linux server without properly testing it on testnet first.”
I'm ashamed of my carelessness and take full responsibility for it. I will publish a detailed post-mortem of what I did, how I did it and my motivations behind it. I apologize to the Cardano community for the disruption I caused. I love Cardano and it was never my intention to… https://t.co/w9L4P793fC
— Homer J (@KpunToN00b) November 21, 2024
It was a mea culpa. A story of curiosity getting the better of caution. Many in the crypto space are familiar with this kind of tinkering. It’s how bugs are often found. But Charles Hoskinson, the founder of Cardano and co-founder of IOG, saw it differently. He didn’t see a careless experiment. He saw an attack.
“It was absolutely personal and now he’s trying to walk it back because he knows the FBI is already involved,” Hoskinson wrote on X. He labeled the developer’s actions a “premeditated attack.”
It was absolutely personal and now he's trying to walk it back because he knows the FBI is already involved. He spent a huge amount of time and effort to construct a transaction that he knew would cause a consensus failure. He tested it on the preview testnet and then waited… https://t.co/114oJ34gY2
— Charles Hoskinson (@IOHK_Charles) November 21, 2024
A fact sheet later circulated by Intersect and Hoskinson confirmed that “relevant authorities and law enforcement are being notified.” The lines were drawn. One side claimed a clumsy accident. The other claimed a deliberate crime.
The Chilling Effect
Hoskinson’s decision to involve federal investigators sent a shockwave through the developer community. The most immediate consequence was the public resignation of an IOG employee. A Plutus language developer known as “effectfully” on X announced he was leaving the firm.
His reasoning was stark. He said he had made mistakes himself during simulated cyberattacks. He was worried that future errors in his development work could lead to legal trouble. “I didn’t realize there was a risk of getting raided by the authorities because of that + saying mean things on the Internet,” he wrote.
I'm resigning from IOG. I didn't realize there was a risk of getting raided by the authorities because of that + saying mean things on the Internet. I've made a few mistakes during my simulated cyberattacks, so I'm not taking any chances. For context, most vulns in the… https://t.co/00Y8v6rX2s
— Roman (@effectfully) November 22, 2024
His departure highlights a deep-seated tension in the world of software security. Finding vulnerabilities often requires pushing systems to their breaking point. It requires thinking like an attacker. But where is the line between ethical hacking and an actual attack, especially in a decentralized system where anyone can participate?
If a developer finds a critical flaw, are they now obligated to handle it with the delicacy of a bomb disposal expert, lest they be accused of malice? Hoskinson’s response suggests that in the high-stakes world of multi-billion dollar blockchains, there is little room for error. The message seems to be that intent doesn’t matter as much as impact.
The Cardano network is whole again. The bug has been patched. But the questions raised by this incident remain. The split revealed more than a technical flaw. It revealed a cultural fracture between the freewheeling curiosity that builds these systems and the immense pressure to protect them once they hold real value. The code can be fixed. Healing the community’s trust might be a much harder task.
