Ravencoin Faces Reorg After Critical KAWPOW Exploit

Ravencoin is facing a potentially deep blockchain reorganization after a critical consensus vulnerability was exploited. The flaw allowed attackers to bypass KAWPOW, the proof-of-work algorithm used by Ravencoin.

The vulnerability affects the validation of Ravencoin's KAWPOW block headers, specifically the nHeight value that vulnerable nodes failed to verify against the block's actual position in the blockchain.

An attacker could manipulate this value to reach a validation path that avoided normal KAWPOW proof-of-work verification, making malicious blocks dramatically cheaper to create than legitimate blocks.

The vulnerability was first observed on August 7 and continued until the release of an emergency software patch by 2Miners on August 10. The patch rejected blocks whose declared height did not match their real blockchain position from height 4,487,776 onward.