Ravencoin drops to record low as miners move to reverse exploited chain

Ravencoin has fallen to a record low after an exploited consensus vulnerability put several days of RVN transactions at risk and led exchanges to suspend deposits and withdrawals.

Summary

• Ravencoin fell to an all time low of $0.002754 after a consensus vulnerability put several days of transactions at risk.
• Mining pools 2Miners and RavenMiner are building a competing chain that could trigger a reorganization covering roughly three days.
• Transactions confirmed after block 4,487,775 could be reversed if the competing chain becomes dominant.
• Upbit and Bitget suspended RVN deposits and withdrawals while the network works to restore stability.

According to CoinGecko, Ravencoin fell to $0.002754 on Wednesday, about 22% below its 24-hour high of $0.003529, as selling accelerated following details of the network problem. Trading volume climbed above $18 million during the sell-off before falling back to roughly $9.6 million, while RVN recovered slightly to around $0.00284 at the time of writing.

The decline came after Ravencoin disclosed on Tuesday that a consensus flaw had allowed vulnerable nodes to accept blocks that should have been rejected. The project traced the first known invalid block to height 4,487,776 on Aug. 7, leaving transactions processed over the following days exposed to a possible rollback.

Following the discovery, mining pools 2Miners and RavenMiner began building a competing chain from block 4,487,776 that excludes the branch containing the invalid blocks. Ravencoin said the two pools control a majority of the network's hash rate, giving their competing chain a chance to become the dominant version of the blockchain.

If that happens, Ravencoin could undergo a chain reorganization covering roughly three days of activity. A blockchain reorganization occurs when nodes replace a previously accepted sequence of blocks with another chain that has accumulated more valid proof-of-work.

The process carries direct consequences for transactions confirmed after block 4,487,775. Ravencoin warned that transactions included on the branch being replaced could disappear from the accepted blockchain, while affected transactions may not automatically return to the mempool or be mined again.

For users who sent RVN during the affected period, a transaction that previously showed confirmations could therefore cease to exist on the dominant chain if the competing branch overtakes it. Exchanges and other services accepting RVN also face the risk that deposits credited during the affected blocks could be reversed.

With the competing chains unresolved, Ravencoin recommended that exchanges temporarily stop RVN deposits and withdrawals until the network reaches a stable state.

Upbit suspended both deposits and withdrawals after detecting the network problem, although the South Korean exchange kept RVN trading available. Bitget also stopped RVN transfers as the network response continued.

Stopping transfers reduces the chance that an exchange credits an incoming transaction that later disappears during a reorganization. Trading can continue internally because trades between exchange users do not require each transaction to be settled immediately on the Ravencoin blockchain.

Ravencoin has not provided a fixed timetable for when the competing chain will become dominant or when exchanges should reopen transfers. Its warning instead tied the resumption of normal activity to the network reaching stability after miners complete the chain recovery process.

The latest incident is not Ravencoin's first serious protocol vulnerability. In July 2020, developers disclosed a separate flaw that attackers had used to create 315 million RVN outside the network's intended issuance schedule, worth about $5.7 million at the time.

The project said at the time that the vulnerability did not allow attackers to directly steal RVN or other assets controlled by users. Instead, the exploit created coins that should not have existed, some of which were transferred to exchanges and traded before the problem could be contained.

Because the newly created RVN had already entered circulation and mixed with legitimate coins, the team said attempting to remove the tokens programmatically could harm users who had acquired them without knowing their origin. Developers initially withheld technical details of the flaw while a patch was prepared and advised miners and exchanges to upgrade.

The 2020 incident involved unauthorized token creation, while the current vulnerability concerns whether nodes accept blocks that comply with Ravencoin's consensus rules. In the present case, the immediate recovery effort is focused on establishing a valid chain history rather than addressing excess RVN already introduced into circulation.

The network disruption has also pushed Ravencoin below price levels reached only weeks earlier. On July 9, RVN was trading around $0.003734, with a market capitalization of roughly $61 million and a circulating supply above 16.34 billion tokens. At that point, the token had already fallen 12.88% over the preceding month.

Wednesday's fall to $0.002754 took RVN below those July levels as traders reacted to the possibility that several days of blockchain history could be replaced. The token remained well below its February 2021 all-time high of $0.285218.

Ravencoin launched in January 2018 as a proof-of-work blockchain designed for issuing and transferring assets. Its mining system means miners provide the computing power used to order transactions and extend the accepted blockchain, making the chain currently being built by 2Miners and RavenMiner central to the network's response.

For now, Ravencoin has advised exchanges to keep deposits and withdrawals disabled while the competing chain develops, with transactions confirmed after block 4,487,775 remaining subject to reversal if the miners' replacement chain becomes dominant.

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