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Ethereum Classic Attacked: Not Secure. ETC Dead?

According to Coinbase, they detected a deep chain reorganization of the Ethereum Classic blockchain that included a double sp
According to Coinbase, they detected a deep chain reorganization of the Ethereum Classic blockchain that included a double spend on 5th January.

According to Coinbase, they detected a deep chain reorganization of the Ethereum Classic blockchain that included a double spend on 5th January. Although, it’s interesting that they waited for a couple of days to make this announcement after having discovered it on the 5th. Regardless, the exchange has halted deposits and withdrawals of Ethereum Classic. They went on to say that they have seen eight different reorganizations of episodes that included double spends totaling around half a million US Dollars worth of Ethereum Classic that was double spent.

The markets have not been very favorable to this. We have seen Ethereum Classic taking a bit of a dip. Today people don’t like these kinds of situations when the blockchain doesn’t seem to be very secure anymore and that is exactly what has happened. Ethereum Classic was not secure.

What exactly happened:

There was a 51% takeover of the Ethereum Classic blockchain which is quite devastating for Ethereum Classic. This is not being called a 51% attack but a chain reorganization. The chain reorganization isn’t so much an attempt to control the network as it is to take temporary advantage of low hash power in double spend before hashing power returns to normal levels. Essentially, a chain reorganization is a situation where a single miner or a single pool has more resources than the rest of the network and the dominant miner can then define a new transaction history on network picking an arbitrary previous block from which to extend an alternative block history.

The team at Ethereum Classic has come out saying that they have a pretty good idea of who they suspect might be behind taking over the network apparently an ASIC manufacturer called Linzhi is currently testing out 1400 Megahash ETHhash mining machines which could have easily seen them taking over the network. They are saying that it is most likely a selfish mining attack, not a 51% attack. Ethereum Classic are saying that double spends have not been detected but Coinbase has a different story. It is very problematic if it only takes one company to come in and start testing their machines and easily dominate the network, it really speaks to the low-security overall of Ethereum Classic.

Some has even gone as far as to put around the theory that its no coincidence that only 3 days ago that Okex opened up the possibility to short Ethereum Classic and essentially someone could have very easily gone, purchased that power or done it intentionally whether it was Linzhi or someone else could have very easily attacked Ethereum Classic knowing that it will push the price down so that their short orders would get filled, thus making truckloads of money. It seems like a possible theory when it comes to big money players and how easy it can be to attack some of these blockchains.

Tough Time for Ethereum Classic

It has been a tough couple of months behead the death of the ETC dev team, one of the many teams working on Ethereum Classic which caused a lot of FUD that Ethereum Classic is dead. Although we still have other teams like the ETC cooperative and the ETC labs working on developing Ethereum Classic.

Another devastating situation did happen for Ethereum Classic that IOHK, the development firm behind Cardano has announced that they are ending support for ETC Mantis. Charles Hoskinson came out and said that the team has numerous roadmap updates that could be implemented in Ethereum Classic but doing so would take time, money and effort and thus would be currently unsustainable as the ecosystem stands. He said that the challenge for him is that he is spending his own money building this and they have never got a revenue source for the construction of this client so at the moment they have made nothing for participating in Ethereum Classic and at some point as the CEO of a company he does have to take a decision of when and where they do stop spending money and when and where they do stop contributing resources for something that doesn’t contribute back.

What do you think about the future of Ethereum Classic? Tell us in the comments section below.

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