The Cardano blockchain faced a serious incident — a temporary chain split that has already drawn the attention of the FBI. Although the team insists users’ funds remain safe, the event triggered a drop in the ADA token and raised concerns about the network’s stability.
On November 21, the Cardano mainnet experienced a chain partition — a short-term split in blockchain history where two parallel chains coexisted. Intersect, the organization overseeing the ecosystem, confirmed that the root cause was a malformed transaction that triggered a bug in the blockchain code. Block production temporarily slowed, but after node upgrades the network reconverged into a single chain within 14.5 hours.
While no user funds were compromised, the team emphasized that the event is treated as a serious cyber incident, prompting notification to the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Developer @KpunToN00b publicly accepted responsibility, admitting they attempted to reproduce the faulty transaction using AI-generated instructions without proper testing on testnet.
Cardano co-founder Charles Hoskinson claims the event was a premeditated attack intended to target his personal crypto holdings, and that the Cardano team “caught the guy.” He says the attacker prepared the operation for months and is now trying to walk it back after learning of FBI involvement. Following the disruption, ADA dropped around 6%, showing weaker recovery than other major crypto assets.
The Cardano chain split highlights how even major blockchain networks remain vulnerable to malformed transactions and human errors. The involvement of the FBI and strong statements from the project’s leadership amplify the significance of the event and its potential reputational impact.
