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Topic: Ethereum Classic - 1.1 Million USD Stolen Through 51% attacks (Read 369 times)

hero member
Activity: 1960
Merit: 547
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I haven't seen this news yet in Altcoin Discussion, so I thought I'd share the article here.
Hackers have stolen 1.1 million USD on Coinbase by doing double spends, after they'd gotten control of more than 50% of the mining hashrate.

Quote
Ethereum $ETH▲1.15% Classic, one of the most popular forks of the second most valuable cryptocurrencies by market cap has suffered a 51-percent attack.

After Chinese blockchain security firm SlowMist raised the alarm, an analyst at CoinNess dug a little deeper. The analyst found that a private mining pool had managed to increase its hash power to 3,263 GH/s, making it – temporarily – the most powerful mining pool at around 11:00am UTC on 6 January.

After this brief spike in power, the mining pool returned to its normal state of around 300 GH/s. However, ten hours later the same thing happened again, and the pool’s hash rate began to climb. At the time CoinNess’ article was published the illicit mining pool’s power equated to around 63-percent of the total network hash rate.

Shortly after these attacks Coinbase paused all Ethereum Classic transactions, it initially detected that around 88,500 ETC ($460,000) had been double-spent. However, the cryptocurrency exchange has since uncovered another 12 attacks that “included double spends, [now] totaling 219,500 ETC ($1.1 million).”

Source: https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2019/01/08/ehtereum-classic-51-percent-attack/

At least 14 double spends were detected!

I'm shocked that there is no dump and ETS is still in TOP-20 at CMC and the volume is still pretty high. Don't you think guys that it's really terrible and ridiculous at the same time?
member
Activity: 271
Merit: 10
That is why I don't invest into small coins, these coins do not have enough miners, so it is easy to buy enough hashrate and attack on those blockchain.
member
Activity: 429
Merit: 10
This is a big problem those people who promote on this project also trusting for ethereum fork and the result is 100% scam and you can see the mainchat clearly deleted for newcomers who want to join.
jr. member
Activity: 278
Merit: 1
simply getting the job done
The Ethereum classic losing ground and scares investors. I heard that the development team does not promote the project and there are people who left the project. The development team says that they tested ASIC but in fact it's very sad and I think that the attack took place.
full member
Activity: 602
Merit: 100
this is not a good news and I think this poor POW could be a problem for most of altcoins, expecially ones that don't have big community and capitalisation.....
legendary
Activity: 3710
Merit: 1170
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Does anyone know what happens to ETC now ? Like they were attacked and got 1.1 million stolen but what about now ? Is it gone ? Like will it be 1 satoshi and forgotton like some scam coin ? Or will it continue to operate and get traded in big exchanges and forget about this happened and try to make the 51% attack harder and just move on ?

I don't know if I will be ever capable of trusting ETC again and I haven't had any ETC in the past year but from now on I don't think I will ever even consider trading it let alone invest into it. Maybe they will start to crumble and not matter anymore in the short future, it would be weird to see investors still supporting a coin that basically got hacked and stolen because of the 51% attack because why would they support it when there are many other coins much more secure.
copper member
Activity: 593
Merit: 10
this is bad news for ETC holders. after knowing the ETC was stolen and how the continuation of the ETC in the future can still survive well in the market. and for the POW network you need to be questioned for the best security. this is not good news for all
sr. member
Activity: 561
Merit: 250
This is only a game of big investors. They're making bad information to make the people panic and sell their assets. After the price drops, surely they will start buying in large quantities.
legendary
Activity: 1792
Merit: 1283
But the developer team of Ethereum Classic said that absolutely no 51% attack occurred. However, after having a double withdrawal order on January 5 on Coinbase, they proceeded to suspend the withdraw and deposit ETC. I think that happened 51% attacks

There's been some very misleading news about this. Cointelegraph actually edited one of their articles to say that there wasn't a 51% attack, just like you mentioned.
After that article was released, then the news came out about the double spends on Coinbase.

Here's an accurate timeline of the events, quite a shitshow really...
https://cointelegraph.com/news/crypto-exchange-gateio-confirms-51-attack-on-ethereum-classic-promises-refunds

I'm actually going to quote the article, just in case they change it again.

Quote
Researchers from crypto exchange Gate.io report they have confirmed that a 51 percent attack successfully occurred on the Ethereum Classic (ETC) blockchain. The company published an analysis of their findings Jan. 8.

Gate.io Research has published its analysis of ETC transactions on its platform during the alleged attack, claiming it has detected seven rollback transactions — four of which were reportedly conducted by the attacker, transferring a total of 54,200 ETC in total (worth $271,500 at press time).

Gate.io reports that the incident occurred over a period of 4 hours between 0:40 and 4:20 Jan.7, 2019 UTC, during which the transactions were normally confirmed on the blockchain and then subsequently invalidated after the malign network rollback. After providing details of three ETC addresses purportedly used by the attacker, Gate.io continues to explain:

    “Gate.io's censor successfully blocked [the] attacker's transactions at the beginning and submitted them to [a] manual exam. Unfortunately, during the 51% attack, all the transactions looked valid and confirmed well on the blockchain. The examiner passed the transactions. It caused about 40k ETC loss due to this attack.”

Gate.io states it will compensate its users’ losses, stating “Gate.io will take all the loss for the users.” The exchange also advises other crypto trading platforms to block transactions stemming from the identified suspect addresses. The exchange also states it has raised its ETC transaction confirmation number to 500 and launched a more robust 51 percent detection security mechanism.

Today, Jan. 9, Chinese blockchain security firm Slow Mist also published a report also confirming a 51 percent attack and containing and the same rollback transactions reported by Gate.io.

As previously reported, several major crypto exchanges — United States-based Coinbase and Japanese exchanges bitFlyer and Coincheck — have have all temporarily suspended withdrawals and deposits of ETC as early as Jan. 5. The exchanges all reportedly moved to respond to unusual hashpower activity indicating a potential 51 percent attack, as well as Coinbase’s own findings of double spending and “chain reorganizations.”

The ETC dev team initially responded by refuting that a 51 percent attack had taken place, stating that double spends had not been detected. At the time, they claimed that majority control over the network’s hashrate was “most likely selfish mining,” attributable to the testing of new 1,400/Mh ethash machines by application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) manufacturer Linzhi.

As reported, a 51 percent attack can occur on blockchains that use a proof-of-work (PoW) algorithm, and essentially entails a user or group seizing control of the majority of mining power to monopolize control over the network. This, in particular, can allow the threat actor to reverse transactions with the view to double spend — by transacting crypto for fiat currency, and then rolling back the deed to recuperate the spent crypto, while pocketing the fiat.

While the theoretical risk of majority attacks exists, practically seizing control of a large hashrate blockchain is widely considered to be prohibitively expensive at present. The PoW-based Bitcoin blockchain has not to date been compromised by a hijack of the network’s hashrate, but some developers have nonetheless made the case for investigating potential PoW change.
jr. member
Activity: 308
Merit: 1
Nothing can be done about it, every decentralized platform has a huge risk of such an attack!
sr. member
Activity: 618
Merit: 274
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This is the main reason why COINBASE delisted ETHEREUM CLASSIC on their wallet.
This must be fix soon before they will get back it. i hope that everything will be fix and get back to normal as ETC is a good one.
Thats impossible to fix in my opinion. The blockchain got manipulated because of the attack. A PoW based chain cant be protected from 51% attacks I think!

It can and already has been done by Gulden (NLG)

The POW2 system uses POW and witnessing to validate blocks. To attack the Gulden blockchain you would theoretically need 71% of the hash rate and 71% of the coins locked in the witnessing system. Currently around 16% of all Gulden in circulation are witnessing meaning an attacker would need 71% of the hash rate (easy) and 71% of the witnessing amount i.e. they would have to go out and buy around a third of all the Gulden in circulation (impossible).

Full details here:

https://gulden.com/en#technology

These sorts of attacks are going to happen more and more and no coin is safe (not even bitcoin). What crypto investors need to understand is that if you invest in crypto you're investing in something that is not an investment grade product because your funds are not safe.

For those interested you really should read the Gulden whitepaper to see why POW and POS alone are not suitable to secure a blockchain. This is not pie in the sky theory. The system is operating and working right now.
sr. member
Activity: 703
Merit: 250
It is pretty sad that such hacker attacks are still taking place in our industry. We need to find a way out of this, because due to such actions, we are losing a lot of people from the crypto industry. Btw I think these double spends are going to be returned.
legendary
Activity: 2296
Merit: 2721
Enjoy 500% bonus + 70 FS
This is the main reason why COINBASE delisted ETHEREUM CLASSIC on their wallet.
This must be fix soon before they will get back it. i hope that everything will be fix and get back to normal as ETC is a good one.
Thats impossible to fix in my opinion. The blockchain got manipulated because of the attack. A PoW based chain cant be protected from 51% attacks I think!
jr. member
Activity: 168
Merit: 1
“Justice as a Service Infrastructure”
It's terrible every time I see the news again that a 51% attack has been committed. I think it may devalue the coin, in December I heard that the lead team that worked on ETC announced their departure due to insufficient funding. Do you still believe the coin will survive?
sr. member
Activity: 742
Merit: 250
But the developer team of Ethereum Classic said that absolutely no 51% attack occurred. However, after having a double withdrawal order on January 5 on Coinbase, they proceeded to suspend the withdraw and deposit ETC. I think that happened 51% attacks
hero member
Activity: 1876
Merit: 512
The recent attack on ETC just give those advocating for POS shift more voice, the issue now is that most of these POW projects are useless because they have no usecase and no one will be willing to buy miners to back them up, if care is not talking this could be the trend this year because if ETC can be attacked successful what chance do small POW coins have
Pab
legendary
Activity: 1862
Merit: 1012
I haven't seen this news yet in Altcoin Discussion, so I thought I'd share the article here.
Hackers have stolen 1.1 million USD on Coinbase by doing double spends, after they'd gotten control of more than 50% of the mining hashrate.

Quote
Ethereum $ETH▲1.15% Classic, one of the most popular forks of the second most valuable cryptocurrencies by market cap has suffered a 51-percent attack.

After Chinese blockchain security firm SlowMist raised the alarm, an analyst at CoinNess dug a little deeper. The analyst found that a private mining pool had managed to increase its hash power to 3,263 GH/s, making it – temporarily – the most powerful mining pool at around 11:00am UTC on 6 January.

After this brief spike in power, the mining pool returned to its normal state of around 300 GH/s. However, ten hours later the same thing happened again, and the pool’s hash rate began to climb. At the time CoinNess’ article was published the illicit mining pool’s power equated to around 63-percent of the total network hash rate.

Shortly after these attacks Coinbase paused all Ethereum Classic transactions, it initially detected that around 88,500 ETC ($460,000) had been double-spent. However, the cryptocurrency exchange has since uncovered another 12 attacks that “included double spends, [now] totaling 219,500 ETC ($1.1 million).”

Source: https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2019/01/08/ehtereum-classic-51-percent-attack/

At least 14 double spends were detected!

Not only Coinbase but several exchanges
I didn't see that kind of attack from long time
Mostly blockchain is protected from that kind of bad activity
It is only showing that ETC chain is poor need to be upgraded
There was that kind of attacks on Bitcoin but now Bitcoin chain is secure
Whatever to say bitcoin chain is most secure from all blockchains
copper member
Activity: 196
Merit: 0
I haven't seen this news yet in Altcoin Discussion, so I thought I'd share the article here.
Hackers have stolen 1.1 million USD on Coinbase by doing double spends, after they'd gotten control of more than 50% of the mining hashrate.
Wow, this is again a lot of money, which were captured by the attack. Surely this will not be the last chain to be attacked. As soon as the people succeed and it is financially worthwhile, they will certainly continue.
full member
Activity: 371
Merit: 100
This is the main reason why COINBASE delisted ETHEREUM CLASSIC on their wallet.
This must be fix soon before they will get back it. i hope that everything will be fix and get back to normal as ETC is a good one.
legendary
Activity: 2296
Merit: 2721
Enjoy 500% bonus + 70 FS
Well, thats the problem coming with PoW ... if someone is able to get 51% of the mining power he or she can manipulate the blockchain at his own will. Very easy for lesser known coins, very hard for coins with big support like BTC.
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