wry Posted January 8, 2019 #1 Posted January 8, 2019 A 51% attack, where a bad actor gains control of 51% or more of the hashing power of a network has been a nightmare scenario for Bitcoin since it's inception. While there are many things you could not do with a 51% attack, such as increase the total number of coins, there is a lot of things you could do, including double spending coins. While Bitcoin, with it's large community, has mostly resisted risk of a 51% attack (there was a real scare in 2014 when ASICs became popular), the declining future of Ethereum Classic (an early fork off of Ethereum when the DAO when all wrong) saw that recently happen. As another news story mentioned, the core development team of Ethereum Classic is moving on, while the coin will remain, it is losing some of it's developers and apparently some support as a 51% attack was launched against it yesterday. An attack like this allows the attacker to rewrite recent parts of the blockchain. Very scary. Fortunately, Stake does not use Ethereum Classic but it is a coin used some other sites and is listed on most every exchange. The attack was serious enough that Coinbase suspended transactions on Ethereum Classic during the attack. Story on the Ethereum Classic 51% attack: https://www.coindesk.com/coinbase-suspends-ethereum-classic-after-blockchain-history-rewrites Just because it is interesting, here's a story from 2014 when Bitcoin itself was threatened. It has some good information on what a 51% attacker can and can't do: https://www.coindesk.com/51-attacks-real-threat-bitcoin (It concludes that a 51% attack would crash the price so bad it wouldn't be worth it.)
EpicGord Posted January 8, 2019 #2 Posted January 8, 2019 Is there is not a way to prevent 51% attack.There must be someway of preventing it to happen.It means investor will not ever overcome their fears to invest in commodity that can be compromised by such things.
KiXxnTRiXx Posted January 8, 2019 #3 Posted January 8, 2019 Thanks for the news wrry. More and more attacks on crypto has been happening lately, since its all based online, guess that cant be helped. There will always be a community of those just wanting to get rich by stealing or other shady methods. So much is focused on money and how money means easy life that most buys into that idea that they are willing to do whatever it takes to get it no matter the risk. Sad to think that this is the world we live in.
wry Posted January 8, 2019 Author #4 Posted January 8, 2019 1 hour ago, EpicGord said: Is there is not a way to prevent 51% attack.There must be someway of preventing it to happen.It means investor will not ever overcome their fears to invest in commodity that can be compromised by such things. Sure Epic, that is the whole point of decentralization. But the way Bitcoin and most other cryptocoins are set up is that if you can somehow get to 51% of the network you can control it. So far this has mostly been confined to lesser or dying coins, for example, Litecoin Cash, who uses that? But it is a threat. One of the smartest things Dogecoin did when it's network was dying was shift to merge mining with Litecoin, so if you mine Litecoin you also mine Doge. It kept it alive and it's still a popular coin despite never taking itself too seriously! @KiXxnTRiXx I agree it's sad. What really worries me is that this can work FOR investors. As more mainstream investments such as futures become available for crypto you can make big money making it go down as well as up. The 2014 article I posted about Bitcoin concludes no one would do a 51% attack because it would be expensive and would crash the price, what's the point of being able to double spend a coin that is worthless? BUT, what if you buy tons of futures betting that the price will go down, then crash the price, you make a fortune. So the threat is real, even for Bitcoin.
anonnep Posted January 8, 2019 #5 Posted January 8, 2019 i had been saving some Ethereum Classic coin in my wallet .was hoping that pricce will go up after that incident i feel that there are many threats
wry Posted January 9, 2019 Author #6 Posted January 9, 2019 20 hours ago, anonnep said: i had been saving some Ethereum Classic coin in my wallet .was hoping that pricce will go up after that incident i feel that there are many threats You may want to take advantage of any price upticks to cash out as the attacks are continuing. Exchanges are reporting double spends involving tens of thousands of ETC. Link: https://www.coindesk.com/security-slowmist-crypto-exchange-ethereum-classic-attack
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