We can confirm that there was a successful 51% attack on Ethereum Classic
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Re: We can confirm that there was a successful 51% attack on Ethereum Classic
#2What does this mean?
(Not all of us know a whole lot about how crypto works or why this is good or bad and what it means for our investments)
Re: We can confirm that there was a successful 51% attack on Ethereum Classic
#3Amazing, this blockchain technology really just keeps on giving. I have to say, it's quite entertaining to watch. It's pretty much a car crash happening in slow motion at this point. At least it provides something else to nerd joke about by the watercooler that isn't brexit for once.
Re: We can confirm that there was a successful 51% attack on Ethereum Classic
#4Mining pools reported it at least 15hours ago https://twitter.com/pool2miners/status/1082157492875022337
Re: We can confirm that there was a successful 51% attack on Ethereum Classic
#5What does this mean? (Not all of us know a whole lot about how crypto works or why this is good or bad and what it means for our investments)
51% attack means someone (or a group of people) has successfully taken over the said blockchain.
Re: We can confirm that there was a successful 51% attack on Ethereum Classic
#6Amazing, this blockchain technology really just keeps on giving. I have to say, it's quite entertaining to watch. It's pretty much a car crash happening in slow motion at this point. At least it provides something else to nerd joke about by the watercooler that isn't brexit for once.
That's like saying "this whole programming thing just keeps on giving" every time a bug is discovered in any program.
Those involved have been warning of the insecurity of smaller chains for a long time now, and they aren't representative of the entire ecosystem.
Re: We can confirm that there was a successful 51% attack on Ethereum Classic
#7This is inevitable. Ethereum Classic (ETC) isn't the only currency such attacks have been successful on. The site https://www.crypto51.app/ puts the cost of running a 51% attack on ETC at ~$5k per hour. The incentive for running these attacks for profit becomes higher as the market cap of these coins increases, making long-term 'investment' in these coins nonsensical.
Re: We can confirm that there was a successful 51% attack on Ethereum Classic
#8What does this mean? (Not all of us know a whole lot about how crypto works or why this is good or bad and what it means for our investments)
In this kind of blockchain network, the longest chain of blocks is considered to be the valid one. However, someone that has 51% of the hashing power (i.e. more hashing power than everyone else combined) can create a chain that grows faster than the chain used by everyone else. This means that they could tamper with their chain, potentially rewriting history on it, and because it is the longest chain, it will be accepted as the valid chain, and their version of events looks like it has been accepted.
Re: We can confirm that there was a successful 51% attack on Ethereum Classic
#9What does this mean? (Not all of us know a whole lot about how crypto works or why this is good or bad and what it means for our investments)
Because crypto-currencies are validating transactions by having them validated by the network as a whole, a group who controls more than 50% of the computing power can do whatever they want: reject valid transaction, create (and validate) fake transactions...
Re: We can confirm that there was a successful 51% attack on Ethereum Classic
#10What does this mean? (Not all of us know a whole lot about how crypto works or why this is good or bad and what it means for our investments)
The attacker rewrote part of the blockchain which was supposed to be immutable. Generally this allows spending the same money twice.