Hi.
I can partially confirm this on my Forge .2847 (not SpongeForge) server, where the server crashes with this error:
I think spikespaz is referring to version 2.8.196 (not 169 I guess), because for me 2.8.188 is working. I did not test every version down to this, but 2.8.196 to 2.8.194 do not work for me.
And I'm only talking about the server, my client starts with no errors - didn't try to connect though because obviously the server didn't start. 
Thank you as well for any help.