Sequentia co-founder crashed 69% of DOGE nodes by exploiting fatal flaw

Andreas Kohl, co-founder of Bitcoin sidechain Sequentia, claimed responsibility for crashing 69% of the Dogecoin network by exploiting a critical vulnerability dubbed “DogeReaper.”

On December 12, the Department of DOGE Efficiency (@EfficiencyDOGE X) reported that a hacker had taken down nearly 69% of Dogecoin's (DOGE) nodes. Data from Blockchair revealed that Dogecoin had 647 active nodes before the hack, but only 205 remained active after the vulnerability was discovered. The network has since recovered slightly to 373 active nodes.

Kohl claimed responsibility for the hack, stating that he used a computer located in El Salvador. He credited Tobias Ruck, the researcher who discovered the "DogeReaper" vulnerability, which allowed anyone to crash Dogecoin nodes remotely. The vulnerability works like a "Death Note," where typing in a node's address would instantly crash it.

"Anyone could crash the entire Dogecoin network in an instant," @EfficiencyDOGE explained. "If a malicious actor had found this bug, they could have stopped the Dogecoin network for days."

Kohl's hack appears to have had minimal impact on Dogecoin's price, which has increased by 3.1% in the past 24 hours, with a trading volume of $7.3 billion.

Ruck and RoqqitDev disclosed the vulnerability to the network and major exchanges to prevent exploitation. Binance pledged to fix it this week, while Coinbase rated the vulnerability as "low" and granted Ruck $200.