Babylon Bitcoin Staking Protocol Exposes Consensus Vulnerability, Malicious Validators Can Slow Down Block Production

LiquiditySurfer · 2026-01-09T10:32:11+00:00

The Bitcoin staking protocol Babylon has been found to have a serious technical vulnerability, where malicious validators can omit the block hash field, leading to consensus issues and potentially affecting the network's block generation speed. Although no actual exploitation cases have been identified yet, developers warn that timely fixes are necessary to prevent attacks.

LiquiditySurfer

2026-01-09 10:32:11

Abstract generation in progress

【ChainNews】The Bitcoin staking protocol Babylon was recently found to have a serious technical vulnerability. Developers disclosed on GitHub that the flaw is located in the BLS voting extension scheme—the purpose of which is for validators to reach consensus on a particular block.

Where is the problem? The vulnerability allows malicious validators to intentionally omit the block hash field when sending voting extensions. It may seem like just a missing field, but the impact is significant. The role of the block hash field is to inform other validators “which specific blocks we support.”

Once this field is omitted, it triggers validator consensus issues during the network’s epoch boundary. Especially at key consensus check nodes at phase boundaries, malicious validators could theoretically cause other validators to crash. If multiple validators are affected simultaneously, the consequences could be severe—the network’s block production rate would slow down noticeably.

The good news is that there have been no observed cases of this vulnerability being exploited so far. However, developers have issued warnings that if not fixed promptly, this type of attack will eventually be abused. For participants in the Babylon ecosystem, this is a risk point that requires close attention.

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Degentleman

· 01-09 15:58

Another project has run into problems? Babylon's recent move is a bit rough. Hmm... it's the same old validator routine, people who do these kinds of tricks are really 😅 Missing a field causing such a big fuss is truly outrageous. Block generation slowing down? Now the network is even more congested. By the way, how did such a vulnerability make it into the mainnet? What is the development team doing? Hope they fix it quickly, or else we'll be hearing complaints again.

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SignatureDenied

· 01-09 10:55

Another vulnerability... What is Babylon trying to do? Malicious nodes can cause paralysis just by missing a field? That's a bit outrageous. Pledge protocol has a bunch of pitfalls, hurry up and fix it. Wait, this can even affect block generation? That's too dangerous. The Babylon development team needs to take this seriously this time.

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LayerZeroHero

· 01-09 10:49

Damn, just missing one field causing such a big fuss? Babylon really wants to stir things up Missing a hash field can cause all validators to crash? That's way too fragile a design The Babylon team is fixing the漏洞 now, hurry up... How can there still be such basic vulnerabilities, I'm really convinced Slowing down block production sounds really uncomfortable, need to fix it quickly This is why more audits are necessary; small issues can paralyze the entire network If it were truly exploited by malicious validators... I can't even imagine It seems the BLS scheme itself needs to be reviewed again

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DancingCandles

· 01-09 10:33

Missing a field can crash the validator? Babylon is playing with fire. Oh my, malicious nodes are getting new tricks to do, and the security risks in the BTC ecosystem are really hard to bear. Has the vulnerability been fixed or is it still in the wild? If it’s not patched in time, it’s too dangerous. Why are there repeated issues at the consensus layer again? It feels like projects in the Bitcoin ecosystem are all hitting landmines. If multiple malicious nodes attack together, the block could get stuck directly? That’s a bit outrageous. Just hearing about it makes me nervous. Luckily, it was only exposed and not exploited on a large scale. Does the Babylon team respond quickly? Hopefully it doesn’t turn into the next bug bomb again.

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