Ravencoin Faces Potential Four-Day Transaction Rollback After Critical Block Flaw

Two mining pools controlling most of Ravencoin's hashpower are rebuilding a replacement chain from before Friday's first invalid block, putting deposits, withdrawals, and payments made since then at risk of reversal.

Ravencoin, a blockchain derived from Bitcoin's code, is attempting to rewrite several days of transaction history after attackers exploited a critical software vulnerability that allowed invalid blocks to be added to the network. Two major mining pools — 2Miners and RavenMiner — are rebuilding the chain from just before the first invalid block appeared on Aug. 7, a move that could erase completed payments and leave exchanges and users with missing transactions.

RVN's price has dropped sharply amid the turmoil, while exchanges including Bitvavo and South Korea's Upbit have halted deposits and withdrawals as the network determines which version of recent history to accept.

The project, launched in 2018, is a small blockchain built primarily for issuing and transferring digital assets. Like Bitcoin, it depends on miners to produce new blocks and reach consensus on the transaction ledger. However, Ravencoin's network is significantly smaller, meaning a handful of mining pools can exercise outsized influence over which version of the chain prevails when the network splits.

That concentration has become decisive. According to mining pool data, 2Miners and RavenMiner together control the majority of Ravencoin's computing power and are now reconstructing the blockchain record from block 4,487,775 — the last valid block before the exploit. If enough miners follow their lead, everything written since would be replaced.

A blockchain functions as a continuous ledger of transactions, recorded in batches called blocks and added by miners who operate banks of competing computers to produce the next one. Miners typically organize into pools, combining their machines and sharing the proceeds. The version of the ledger backed by the most computing power is the one the network treats as authoritative. Chain reorganizations — where a network replaces one version of recent history with another — do occur in Proof-of-Work systems, but they typically involve only a block or two and resolve within minutes. A rollback spanning multiple days and hundreds of blocks would be exceptional for any blockchain, and the episode underscores a structural tension in smaller Proof-of-Work networks: the same mechanism that makes Bitcoin resilient when hashpower is widely distributed can allow a few operators to rewrite history when it is concentrated.

For users, the implications are direct. A payment that appeared confirmed over the weekend could vanish from Ravencoin's record, with coins returning to the sender and the recipient left with nothing. The exposure extends to anyone who relied on a payment that no longer exists — an exchange that credited a deposit and permitted the customer to withdraw against it would be left short, which is why several platforms have stopped accepting RVN altogether.

Amsterdam-based Bitvavo suspended RVN deposits and withdrawals as a precaution, citing the exploited vulnerability. South Korea's Upbit placed an investment warning on RVN across its won, bitcoin, and tether markets and also halted deposits. Other exchanges listing RVN may face similar decisions as the situation develops.

What Happened

The first invalid block appeared at height 4,487,776 at 15:44 UTC on Aug. 7. Once the vulnerability had been demonstrated on the live network, others appeared to copy it and produce additional invalid blocks of their own. Ravencoin has since released a fix, but patching the software does not undo what has already been written to the chain.

The two pools — 2Miners and RavenMiner — are building their replacement version from block 4,487,775, the last block before the exploit. The project said it asked the pools to restart from a more recent point, which would put less history at risk, but they declined.

RavenMiner said in a message on its website that its nodes are already running an emergency fix and mining what it called the "clean chain." Blocks produced during the attack window are being discarded across the entire network, it said, so mining earnings from that period are reversed everywhere rather than only on its pool. RavenMiner has paused payouts until the chain settles, pledged to cover any shortfall itself, and confirmed that earnings from before 15:44 UTC on Aug. 7 are unaffected.

A Precedent from 2020

Ravencoin has faced similar crises before. In 2020, attackers exploited a separate flaw that allowed RVN to be created beyond what the protocol rules permitted, minting approximately 31 million extra tokens before the vulnerability was fixed.

Market Impact

RVN fell 17% over 24 hours to approximately $0.0029, reducing its market value to roughly $48 million on $10 million of trading volume. The token is down 77% over the past year. The outcome now hinges on whether the replacement chain accumulates enough computing power to overtake the existing one — and on how quickly exchanges regain confidence to resume RVN trading.