Ethereum Classic (ETC) has experienced a new 51% attack that resulted in 4,000 blocks being reorganized a few hours ago. This is the second time this week that ETC experiences a reorganization of blocks. Ethereum Classic is now asking exchanges to raise confirmation times on all deposits and incoming transactions.
Ethereum Classic Second 51% Attack in a Week
On August 6th, just a few hours ago, Etherchain reported that Ethermine has disabled ETC pool payouts due to a 4,000 block reorganization. At the moment, there is no information on whether this attack is related to the previous one or if it has been performed by the same attackers.
Binance informed that the 4,000+ reorg occurred at block 10935622 and the alert system BINANCE implemented caught this immediately. This is why they have decided to halt withdrawals and deposits.
A new chain reorg of 4,000+ blocks has occurred on @eth_classic $ETC at block 10935622.
Our alert system caught this immediately and automatically halted withdrawals and deposits.
It appears to be a follow up 51% attack.
We will update you as things unfold.
— Binance (@binance) August 6, 2020
At the same time, Ethereum Classic recommended exchanges, mining pools and ETC services providers to raise confirmation times on all deposits and incoming transactions. In this way, the number of affected users can be reduced. However, users are already complaining about how hard it is to handle ETC in these conditions.
One of the ETC users that moved funds informed on Twitter:
“40k+ confirmations for ETC to move at Coinbase. Last time that took 12+ hours to move around from mining pool. How much longer do you want to hold onto before we can spend? Not a good use case.”
Other users were asking for Ethereum Classic to do something and solve the solution as soon as possible. This is something that is affecting ETC’s reputation and usability. One of the solutions could be to implement some kind of 51% attack protection.
Furthermore, Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum’s (ETH) co-founder suggested that Ethereum Classic could certainly move towards a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) network that would reduce the number of attacks ETC is currently experiencing.
According to data provided by CoinMarketCap, Ethereum Classic is registering a price decrease of 1.36% in the last 24 hours. At the moment, Ethereum Classic is the 25th largest digital asset and it has a market valuation of $819 million.
It is worth mentioning that the previous attack on the ETC network resulted in the loss of 807,260 ETC. The attacker only spent 17.5 BTC just to be able to get around $5 million in ETC.
