Ethereum Classic Developers Hope to Get a Full Picture of a Potential 51% Attack Soon
Ethereum Classic’s (ETC) development team admitted a malicious attack on the network had taken place and hopes the full extent of the incident will be known rather soon than later.
According to at least two different block explorers, Bitfly and Blockscout, Ethereum Classic saw more than 100 blocks “reorganized” during a potential 51 percent attack late Sunday. At the same time, it was reported on Monday that an abnormal hash rate going into a single mining pool had been detected, potentially causing mass reorganizations (reorgs) of mined blocks.
Ethereum Classic developers initially refuted such claims, however had to admit a cause for concerns at a later stage, urging exchanges and mining pools to increase the number of transaction confirmations.
To all exchanges and mining pools please allow a significantly higher confirmation time on withdrawals and deposits (+400)
cc @OKEx @ExchangeXGroup @HuobiGroup @digifinex @binance @bitfinex https://t.co/m5cxcKBVXa
— Ethereum Classic (@eth_classic) January 7, 2019
In a later deleted twit, ETC developers also said that ASIC manufacturing firm Linzhi had confirmed testing of the new 1,400/Mh Ethash machines and that no double spends had been detected.
Commenting on the situation, U.S.-based crypto exchange Coinbase wrote:
On 1/5/2019, Coinbase detected a deep chain reorganization of the Ethereum Classic blockchain that included a double spend. In order to protect customer funds, we immediately paused movements of these funds on the ETC blockchain. Read more here: https://t.co/vCx89dz44m
— Coinbase (@coinbase) January 7, 2019
Coinbase also said in its blog post that it detected some 88,500 ETC being double-spent (totaling some $460,000).
Moreover, CoinDesk’s reporter Nikhilesh De wrote on Monday evening that Linzhi director of operations Wolfgang Spraul refuted claims that Linzhi is involved in the reorg:
UPDATE: Linzhi Shenzhen director of ops Wolfgang Spraul refuted claims that Linzhi is involved in the reorg: “We are categorically denying such claims, they are entirely baseless and may be part of the attack itself.”https://t.co/ZMUrzazr2p
— Nikhilesh De (@nikhileshde) January 7, 2019
Ethereum Classic responded to Coinbase’s claims saying that the exchange “unfortunately did not connect with ETC personnel regarding the attack.”
On Tuesday morning the developers said that they made “no attempt to hide or downplay recent events,” adding that they hope to “get a full picture of what actually took place.”
To be clear we are making no attempt to hide or downplay recent events.
Facts are facts and as the situation develops we’ll soon get a full picture of what actually took place.
Linzhi is testing ASICS. Coinbase reported double spends; both may be true.In time we will see. https://t.co/bbq6eqIoiS
— Ethereum Classic (@eth_classic) January 7, 2019
In response to the deep reorg, Kraken announced in an incident report that it was increasing the number of confirmations required to make an ETC deposit. The same action was taken by Bitfly.
Poloniex announced it was disabling ETC wallets, and it does not currently have a firm timeline on when they will be re-enabled.
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