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51% attack

Bitcoin SV [BSV]: Several metrics collapse, but price makes rebound

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Bitcoin SV a.k.a. BSV, the alleged Satoshi’s fork, has never been very good at staying away from controversy for a long time. It was recently the news after the network was attacked in an illegal block reorganization by malicious entities. Since then, several metrics went for a toss as it price spiralled back to lows.

According to the Switzerland-based non-profit organization called Bitcoin Association, an unknown miner operating called ‘Zulupool’ caused block re-organisation attacks on the Bitcoin SV [BSV] network. Also called. ‘block withholding,’ this kind of attack, typically consists of a fraudulent entity creating a chain of competing blocks which are re-written so that the attacker can take advantage of. Meaning, double spends that runs in parallel with the original chain. These blocks are created in an obscure manner which are then launched altogether to orphan the correct blocks from honest nodes.

The attack reportedly first took place on the 24th of June, but the fraudulent miner did not stop there and carried three more attacks on July 1, 6 and 9. After the European cold storage provider, Gravity suspended Bitcoin SV trading, cryptocurrency exchange such as OKEx and Huobi followed suit.

Bitcoin Asscoiation confirms double spend on Bitcoin SV

Bitcoin Association confirmed that while Bitcoin SV’s transactions were double spent. However, it further went on to explain that,

“BSV transactions have been double spent, but at this stage, there is no evidence that these fraudulent activities have been carried out to the detriment of another (innocent) party. It is possible that the malicious ‘Zulupool’ has been double-spending their own transactions.”

While the BSV devs are working with the law enforcement officers to catch the culprit, the wider community expressed concerns over the collapsing metrics Bitcoin SV’s hash rate is already minuscule when it comes to the robust Bitcoin [BTC]. At the time of writing, the hash rate figure was hovering near all-time low levels which made it even more prone to attacks.

Its trading volume also went on a downward spiral. The price of the cryptocurrency is probably the only thing that has helped it from a total collapse. Along with the broader market, BSV also underwent a minor surge over the past 24-hours which catapulted its price to $124.73.

Ethereum Classic Suffers Yet Another 51% Attack; 7,000 Blocks Reorganized

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Ethereum Classic [ETC] has suffered a 51% attack for the third time in a month following which reorganization of over 7000 blocks occurred on the network which corresponded to approximately two days of mining.

A chain reorganization takes place when a party gains more hashing power than the rest of the miners in the network. The offending miner then achieves the ability to rewrite the chain’s history and also “double-spend” the blockchain’s native token. The double spends made in the latest attack is not known yet.

A leading organization behind the Ethereum Classic network, ETC Labs called the entire fiasco “suspicious” as it occurred a day after the core-dev meeting.

The 51% attack was first spotted by the mining pool Ethermine’s parent entity Bitfly which revealed that all the lost blocks will be removed from the immature balance and that the platform will check all payouts for dropped transactions.

Ethereum Classic official Twitter handle also responded and tweeted,

“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.”

Following the attack, Ethereum Classic’s hash rate which was declined significantly over the past couple of months was down by 4.77% in the last 24 hours. At 3.78 Th/s, the hash rate was still hovering close to its three-year low.

ETC Cooperative, which happens to be another prominent foundation supporting ETC network’s development also addressed the recent turn of events and 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.”

The network suffered its first 51% attack of the year between July 29 and August 1, when 3,693 blocks were reorganized. Less than a week later 4,000 blocks were reorganized after the network was hit by the second attack. During this time, the adversary was able to double-spend 807,260 ETC [nearly $5.6 million, at that time] after spending 17.5 BTC [around $200,000] to acquire the hash power for the attack.

In light of these events, cryptocurrency exchange, OKEx had revealed that it was considering the removal of the asset.

The series of attacks pertaining to the network insecurity has pushed ETC’s price further down the bearish region as it was down by nearly 50% since February this year. Notably, ETC had suffered a similar attack in 2019.