By Solomon Odunayo
As a recent report has it, the Ethereum Classic blockchain suffered a 51% attack a couple of hours ago, making it the third attack in less than a month.
This attack was noticed and reported by the mining company Bitfly, the same firm that spotted and reported the first attack on 1st August 2020.
According to the report, the attack reorganized over 7,000 blocks, which corresponds to about two days of mining. Based on the previous reports, the first two attacks reorganized 3,693 and 4,000 blocks respectively.
Bitfly tweeted, “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.”
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
About a week ago, ETC Labs, the organization behind Ethereum Classic network, announced its plan to protect the network from further attacks. The measures to be taken also include defensive mining that is targeted at stabilizing the dipping hashrate of the network, to resist 51% attacks in the future.
In response to the report shared by Bitfly, another foundation supporting the development of the network, ETC Cooperation tweeted, “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.”
After the previous attacks, some cryptocurrency exchanges such as OKEx considered delisting ETC due to the security deficiency of Ethereum Classic network.
Also, the US-based cryptocurrency exchange, Coinbase, decided to extend ETC deposit and withdrawal confirmation times to relatively two weeks.
Following this latest attack, Ethereum Classic Official has instructed all miners and exchanges to keep confirmation requirements above 7000 until further notice:
“While ETC is still making progress in evaluating proposed solutions, we are aware of the current risk to the network at these low hash rate levels. To miners, exchanges, and other service providers we suggest keeping confirmation requirements levels well above 7K for now.”
Join us on Twitter
Join us on Telegram
Join us on Facebook