Cardano Founder Says There Will Always Be a Zero-Day Exploit Amid Chain Split

Charles Hoskinson, the founder of Cardano and IOG, believes that downtimes and code bugs are inevitable for blockchains, including Cardano.

He shared this in his “Code Is Law” podcast a few days back, amid the recent Cardano network chain split. For context, the November 21 event exposed a vulnerability on the chain, and Hoskinson believes such happenings are somewhat unavoidable.

This is Software: Hoskinson

The Cardano founder highlighted that blockchain technology runs on a set of engineered software. Owing to that, there will always be code bugs or “zero-day exploits” from bad actors at some point.

For some, it would take a short time to exploit their vulnerability, while for others it might take longer. Notably, Cardano launched on mainnet in September 2017, and it took over 8 years before a major compromise occurred on the network. According to Hoskinson, it is a sign that Cardano is “super good at what we do.”

Despite this, the IOG founder emphasized that allowing bad actors responsible for such detrimental actions to go free should not be an option. He noted that Cardano has SPOs and other stakeholders who derive their livelihood from it.

As such, “you cannot tell me it is the intent of the system to allow people to come in and arbitrarily and capriciously disrupt the entire system.” He added that condoning this could disrupt the livelihood of those tied to Cardano.

Meanwhile, Hoskinson had already disclosed FBI involvement, a move that has stirred a backlash from a faction of the community. Notably, the SPO who triggered the years-old bug had already publicly apologized for his actions.

Cardano Still a High-Integrity System

For the uninitiated, the chain split divided Cardano into the “poisoned” and “healthy” networks, yet there was no downtime as new blocks were still produced. However, this caused major exchanges to halt ADA deposits and withdrawals to mitigate the impact on users.

The way Cardano and its engineering team handled the event drew accolades from Hoskinson despite his rage. He shared in a separate podcast that Cardano’s quick recovery from the bug is a testament to its exceptional qualities.

He called Cardano a high-integrity network and lauded the incredible engineering of its developers, who quickly swung into action to avert further disruptions. Meanwhile, ADA price has recovered from the attack’s mild impact, rallying 2.4% to trade at $0.43 at the time of writing.

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