Ethereum Classic blockchain suffered a 51% attack Saturday evening, its third such attack this month
The Ethereum Classic blockchain suffered a 51% attack yesterday evening. If you count it, this is already the third attack this month. Mining company Bitfly discovered the attack for the third time as well as the first since August 1.
Today another large 51% attack occurred on the #ETC network which caused a reorganization of over 7000 blocks which corresponds to approximately 2 days of mining. All lost blocks will be removed from the immature balance and we will check all payouts for dropped txs.
— Bitfly (@etherchain_org) August 29, 2020
Ethereum Classic blockchain suffered a 51% attack Saturday evening, its third such attack this month
The attack reorganized more than 7,000 blocks, equivalent to two days of mining. The first two attacks were reorganized at blocks 3,693 and 4,000, respectively. Notably, a leading institution behind the Ethereum Classic network, ETC Labs, announced a strategy to protect the network from additional attacks last week, including defensive mining to stabilize the declining hashrate of the network and resist future 51% attacks.
Stevan Lohja, the technology coordinator at ETC Labs, said:
“The timing of the attack very suspicious as it came just a day after a meeting of Ethereum Core developers regarding aggressive innovation in the blockchain’s proof of work.”
ETC Cooperative, another major platform supporting the growth of the network, also shared on Saturday’s attack:
“We are aware of today’s attack and are working with others to test and evaluate proposed solutions as quickly as possible.”
We are aware of today’s attack and are working with others to test and evaluate proposed solutions as quickly as possible.
As ETC makes progress in areas, it still makes up just ~3% of ETH’s hash rate. We kindly ask that miners, exchanges, and others raise confirmations to >12K. https://t.co/Iq6nfFxGra
— ETC Cooperative (@ETCCooperative) August 29, 2020
After the first two attacks, exchange OKEx responded by saying it would consider delisting assets due to the network’s severe lack of security. Coinbase has also taken drastic measures by extending the deposit and withdrawal confirmation times for ETC to about two weeks.
Following the latest hack, top crypto derivative FTX will revisit its ETC perpetual futures contracts. According to CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, this is so even though FTX does not support spot trading, and the insecurity of the cryptocurrency network has a little direct impact on the risk of offering futures trading hybrid.
Ethereum Classic does not appear to be affected by a series of attacks, trading at $ 6.86 at the last test, 4% lower than its price in the second attack. The coin has been trading between $ 6 and $ 8 for most of August.
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