Pirate Chain discloses exploit minting 39.8M ARRR, cancels rollback plan
CIE News ·
Based on reporting by The Defiant; not yet independently confirmed.
An attacker minted 39.8 million ARRR through validation flaws in Pirate Chain's Ironwood upgrade, inflating supply by 20%. Developers dropped an initial blockchain rollback proposal.
Pirate Chain confirmed that an attacker exploited a source-code vulnerability to mint approximately 39.8 million ARRR on October 14, 2026, increasing the coin's circulating supply by roughly 20%. The issue originated from two validation failures linked to the Ironwood network upgrade activated on October 3, 2026, including a bypassed issuance check and incorrect transaction output script interpretation. According to the project, the illicitly generated tokens were transferred directly into the Sapling shielded pool, obscuring their movement.
Crypto exchange NonKYC detected suspicious activity tied to the incident, froze the associated account, and halted withdrawals, cryptotimes.io reported. Operators of delayed Proof-of-Work notarizations on Komodo Classic and Litecoin also voluntarily paused their operations. While developers initially proposed rolling the blockchain back to October 14, 2026, at 20:00 UTC, the team announced on October 15, 2026, that a unilateral rollback is impossible due to the network's decentralized structure.
The project stated that its zk-SNARKs cryptography and notary keys were not compromised. The blockchain continues to operate while developers formulate a recovery plan with partner communities.
Key facts
- 39.8M ARRR minted
- 20% of supply inflated
- Linked to Oct 3 upgrade
- Rollback plan abandoned
Read the original at The Defiant