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September 09, 2026, 10:12:28 AM |
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**TL;DR:** In August 2026, a KAWPOW `nHeight` forgery from height 4,487,776 put ~3 days of history at risk. Pools + community rebuilt a clean chain. RavenProject shipped **v4.8.0**. The network is still here — and the ATL chart understates how antifragile that was.
## What broke
KAWPOW headers carry an `nHeight` field that feeds the PoW hash and picks DAG epoch / ProgPoW period. Core never checked that field against the block's *real* height in the chain.
Lie about height → opt into the cheap checkpoint path → skip real memory-hard work → supply a fake `mix_hash` and get accepted. Forging a block became orders of magnitude cheaper than mining one honestly.
## Timeline (compressed)
- **Aug 7, 15:44 UTC** — first known invalid block at **4,487,776**
- Exploit window ~**3 days**; forged history on the vulnerable tip
- **Aug 10** — emergency height-check patch + checkpoint at **4,487,775** (last clean)
- Pools start mining a **competing clean chain** from the fork point
- **Aug 19** — official **RavenProject v4.8.0** ships (KAWPOW height check + asset overflow fix)
Detect → patch → reorg to honesty → ship upstream.
## How the rescue worked
This wasn't a foundation press release. It was hashpower + ops.
Majority pools refused the forged branch, pinned **4,487,775**, and grew a clean tip that overtook the bad one. Nodes on patched software settle at the checkpoint, reject `bad-blk-height` junk from 4,487,776+, and rebuild chainstate.
Ugly? Yes. Consensus is allowed to be ugly when the alternative is living on forged PoW.
## Why it matters
Most "hacks" in crypto are bridges, keys, or smart-contract footguns. This was **consensus-layer**: the thing that decides what "true" means.
RVN's answer wasn't vibes:
1. height must match position in chain
2. checkpoint the last honest block
3. discard the forged window
4. force upgrade path to **v4.8.0**
Fair-launch, GPU-mined, asset-native chain. No VC nanny. No "we'll pause the chain from HQ." When upstream was slow, the mining network shipped a fix and later folded it into official core.
## Price vs integrity
Markets hate uncertainty. Fair.
**ATL ~$0.00258** printed **2026-08-12** into the freeze/reorg fear. Price later dug toward ~$0.003 — still recovering, not a V-shaped hopium story.
Also: **Jan 15, 2026** second halvving already landed (**2500 → 1250** RVN/block). Emission tightened *before* this mess.
Chart is still wounded. Chain integrity is not.
## Boring trust checklist
- Are you on **v4.8.0** (user agent `/Ravencoin:4.8.0/`)?
- Is your peer set on the clean tip past the checkpoint?
- Did you verify release notes: KAWPOW height check **and** asset-transfer overflow patch?
- Are explorers / pools / exchanges aligned on the rescued history?
Trust is a sync height, not a tweet.
## Soft next steps (use the network)
Don't "ape." Do something on-chain that only works if the ledger is real:
- Spin up a node on **v4.8.0** and watch it settle clean
- Create / transfer a **Ravencoin asset** (that's the product)
- Point GPU hash at a pool mining the honest tip
- Read the **v4.8.0** notes + 2Miners Aug writeup + RavenMiner HF page yourself
Chains don't prove resilience in bull markets. They prove it when someone forges PoW for nearly free and the network still chooses math over convenience.
**Sources:** 2Miners Aug 2026 blog · RavenMiner HF page · GitHub RavenProject/Ravencoin `v4.8.0`
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