Hacker Exploits Dogecoin Vulnerability, Crashes 69% Of Nodes—But DOGE Still Spikes 1.8%
By Benzinga
A critical vulnerability in the Dogecoin (CRYPTO: DOGE) network has led to a significant disruption, with 69% of its nodes rendered inactive. The incident did not meaningfully impact the price of Dogecoin.
What Happened: Andreas Kohl, co-founder of the Bitcoin sidechain Sequentia, claimed responsibility for exploiting the flaw on Dec. 12, using a modest laptop in El Salvador to execute the attack.
Prior to the incident, data from Blockchair showed 647 active Dogecoin nodes.
Following the exploit, that number plummeted to 315. Kohl revealed that the exploit leveraged a vulnerability discovered by researcher Tobias Ruck, showcasing a severe gap in the network’s resilience.
An X account named “Department of DOGE Efficiency” had previously disclosed the existence of the “DogeReaper” vulnerability on Dec. 4.
This results in the operating system halting the program for safety, causing the node to crash.
“If a malicious actor had discovered this bug instead of us, they could have stopped the Dogecoin network for several days, halting transactions and block creation entirely,” the account warned.
Also Read: EXCLUSIVE: Experts Share Their Top Crypto Predictions For 2025
Why It Matters: The news had no impact on the price of DOGE, which is trading around $0.4138, up 1.8% over the past 24 hours.
According to technical analyst Ali Martinez, Dogecoin could be on the verge of a significant breakout.
Martinez, who has a following of 97,000 on X (formerly Twitter), believes DOGE is in the early stages of a bull cycle similar to its 2017 and 2021 runs.
Sharing a chart with his followers, Martinez suggested DOGE is currently trading within a large ascending channel that aligns with historical bull market patterns.
“Check out where we are in the Dogecoin DOGE bull cycle! Very early, right?” Martinez said.
He added that he’s taking advantage of the dip by buying more DOGE in the $0.30–$0.40 range, setting a target of $3 and a speculative upper range of $18 if the market sees a strong rally.
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Image: Shutterstock
