Cardano Survives 14-Hour ‘Poison Piggy’ Chain Split

Published: 2025-11-25 13:12:05 |

Cardano suffered a 14-hour “Poison Piggy” chain split on November 21, 2025, after a serialization bug in its node software created two incompatible forks. Older nodes rejected an over-long delegation hash, while newer nodes truncated and accepted it, spawning the strict “chicken chain” and the permissive “pig chain.” During the incident, transaction delays peaked at 400 seconds and block times stretched to 16 minutes. Of 14,383 transactions, about 3.3% were recorded only on the discarded pig chain and required resubmission. Recovery proceeded without a protocol rollback. IOG, the Cardano Foundation, Emurgo, Intersect, exchanges, and stake pool operators applied a patched node release first validated on testnet. Ouroboros consensus then automatically converged the network onto the healthier chicken chain. The Poison Piggy post-mortem highlighted shortcomings in testing rigor, overreliance on cardano-db-sync for monitoring, and replay risks for exchanges and bridges. Recommendations include stronger fuzzing and spec-driven tests, enhanced node-to-client protocols, diversified monitoring stacks, and improved operator training. Founder Charles Hoskinson praised the network’s resilience and announced plans for AI-driven alerts and an emergency pub/sub channel. At press time, ADA traded at $0.4141.

Neutral

Although the Poison Piggy chain split caused temporary delays and a 3.3% transaction loss on the discarded fork, Cardano’s rapid recovery without a protocol rollback demonstrates robust decentralized consensus via Ouroboros. The network’s resilience and coordinated patch deployment suggest minimal long-term disruption. Traders may see short-term volatility around ADA as confidence is tested, but the incident underlines Cardano’s reliability. Similar past splits, such as Ethereum’s Istanbul hard fork, triggered brief uncertainty but did not undermine market fundamentals. Consequently, we maintain a neutral stance, anticipating minor ADA price fluctuations before returning to baseline trends.