Hash Power Consolidation On The Ethereum Classic Network Is Not A 51% Attack According To ETC Developers

Since yesterday, the entire cryptocurrency community has been talking about the attack on the Ethereum Classic network. There have been many reports regarding this event and some of them are conflicting with the statement released by the Ethereum Classic development team. One thing that has been common in all the reports is that the attack was a consolidation of 51% of the hash rate from a single computing source to create double spend and benefit from them.

Attack Following the reports by BitFlyer and some other exchanges, the Ethereum Classic development team issued a statement. According to them, the attack may have been as a result of the actions of a single selfish miner and was not a 51% hashrate consolidation attack as reported by others. This announcement was posted on the ETC developers official Twitter handle today. They also claimed that no double spend was detected on the network.
In fact, the team accused Linzhi, a mining hardware manufacturer, of being responsible for the disruption. According to the tweet, the increased hashrate may have been as a result of Linzhi testing its 1,400/Mh ethash machines. Shortly after the post was published, the company, Linzhi, issued a statement denying being the cause of the attack.

This morning, one of the leading cryptocurrency exchanges in America, Coinbase, announced that it has suspended all transactions on the Ethereum Classic network from deposits to withdrawal. The announcement stated that a deep chain reorganization, including double spending, was observed on the blockchain. The company stated that after the original report of reorganization was made public, it noticed eight more that included a double spend of up to $445,155 in ETCs. However, the the exchange stated that it wasn’t a victim of this double spend. At the time of writing, deposits and withdrawals were still suspended.

Yesterday, Bitflyer and Coincheck posted that all deposits and withdrawals of Ethereum Classic have been suspended until further notice. This morning, both exchanges announced that the suspension is still in effect and would only be lifted when the threat is eliminated.

Chain reorganization happens when one miner or a single mining pool accumulates more hash power (at least 51%) than the rest of the entire network put together. With this power, the miner or pool can change the network’s transaction history.

Ethereum (ETH) Price Today – BTC / USD

In May 2018, a report by Husam Abboud, a Brazilian researcher, showed that launching a 51% attack on the Ethereum Classic network would require an average of $85 million. So, it would take a highly determined person or group of people to sponsor such an attack.

In November 2018, Coinbase announced that it had listed Ethereum Classic on its network allowing users to send, receive and check balances. This didn’t do much to boost the price of ETC compared to when the exchange initially announced its plans in June. The June announcement caused a spike in the price of ETC.

Still the 18th cryptocurrency per market capitalization, ETC was trading at $5.04. This shows that it is down by 3.19% against the USD and down by 3.33% against BTC. The 24 hour trading volume is $161,145,797 and the market capitalization is $541,304,438.