Cardano’s 14-Hour Chain Split Exposed Critical Flaws—Here’s How It Recovered

One bug brought Cardano to its knees—halting transactions, delaying blocks, and forcing a reckoning. The fixes since then could redefine its future.

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2025 November 26 . 7:08 AM

1 min read

In this image I can see a stall, in the stall I can see few covers, cardboard boxes on the rack, in... — In this image I can see a stall, in the stall I can see few covers, cardboard boxes on the rack, in front I can see few papers attached to the board and the board is in white color.

Cardano’s 14-Hour Chain Split Exposed Critical Flaws—Here’s How It Recovered

Cardano faced one of its worst technical failures in late 2022 when a serialization bug triggered a 14-hour chain split. The incident disrupted transactions, delayed blocks, and exposed gaps in the network’s testing and monitoring systems. Since then, the blockchain has recovered, but the event has prompted major changes to prevent future issues.

The trouble began in September 2022 when a bug in Cardano’s node implementation caused a unidirectional soft fork. This split the network into two conflicting versions of the blockchain. Nodes failed to agree on transaction history, leading to severe delays—some transactions took up to 400 seconds, while block times stretched to 16 minutes.

Cardano has recovered from its 14-hour chain split, but the event has driven key improvements in its infrastructure. Stricter testing, better monitoring, and operator education are now priorities to prevent similar failures. The blockchain continues to operate as a single chain while preparing for its next phase of upgrades.