Flow Scraps Rollback Plan after Pushback over Decentralization, Security

The Flow Foundation, behind addressing a remediation plan following a $3.9 million exploit of the blockchain, has scrapped a proposal that would involve rolling back the layer-1 Flow chain after community criticism.

In a Monday X post, Alex Smirnov, founder of bridge provider deBridge, said there would be “no rollback” and no reorganization of the blockchain as part of an updated recovery. Flow released a technical implementation plan, saying it had already temporarily restricted accounts affected by the exploit and Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) operations were read-only as part of phase one of the recovery.

“There will be no chain reorganization,” said Flow. “All legitimate transactions that occurred prior to the halt remain valid and will not require resubmission or reconciliation.”

The implementation plan followed pushback from many users over concerns with the network’s decentralization and security. Smirnov said on Sunday that the plan, which included a rollback of the Flow chain, was a “rushed decision” that could cause “financial damage far exceeding the impact of the original exploit.”

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The $3.9 million exploit, reported by the blockchain on Saturday, and Flow’s proposed recovery plan could have contributed to the price of the network’s token, Flow (FLOW), dropping more than 20% in the previous 24 hours. According to data from Cointelegraph Markets, the price of the token was $0.11 at the time of publication.

What’s next in the recovery plan?

Implementation of the remediation plan could take several days according to the timeline provided by Flow. Following phase one, the blockchain is expected to relaunch its non-EVM chain Cadence and resume operations between the bridge and exchange.

“[Flow’s] response required genuine collaboration between parties under high stress,” said Find Labs, the team behind Flow block explorer Flowscan, in a Monday X post. “It takes serious stewardship to be responsive to ecosystem feedback, yet be ready to make the hard choices at the right time.”

It’s unclear whether Flow’s plan will result in a complete recovery of the affected assets. The network is expected to provide another update within 24 hours.