Ethereum Classic Network Reorganizes Blockchain History, Coinbase Suspends Transactions
On Sunday, January 6, the Ethereal Classic network saw some major activity taking place as over 100 blocks were re-organized that marks the possibility of a 51 percent attack on the network. In result of the series of blockchain history reorganizations taking place on the network, crypto exchange Coinbase was quick to halt all Ethereum Classic (ETC) transactions including deposits and withdrawals.
The Coinbase blog post reads: “On 1/5/2019, Coinbase detected a deep chain reorganization of the Ethereum Classic blockchain that included a double spend. In order to protect customer funds, we immediately paused interactions with the ETC blockchain.”
The Ethereum Classic developers team has finally taken cognizance of this fact and tweeted on Monday that it is working with China-based security firm Slow Mist in this matter. The ETC handle Tweeted: “We are now working with Slow Mist and many others in the crypto community. We recommend exchanges and pool significantly increase confirmation times.”
The cause was that some abnormal amount of hash rate had entered a single mining pool and potentially caused mass reorganizations of the mined blocks. There was some sort of “abnormality” detected in mining hash rate of the private Ethereum classic mining pool. However, the ETC developers refuted previous suspicions of a “51 percent attack” and “double spend” claims saying that their possibility was not detected and that it was more sort of network consolidation.
In a Tweet ETC developer and advisor Cody Burns post, wrote: “Chain reorganization is a client-local phenomenon; the entire Ethereum network doesn't "reorganize" simultaneously. It would be more likely that someone discovered all of Coinbase ETC nodes and 'surrounded' them.”
However, he added that regardless from the where the situation arose, firms providing ETC services should take immediate and necessary steps to protect its investors. He wrote: “The best course of action is for businesses and exchanges using ANY Ethereum based chain is to increase the number of confirmation blocks to >400 blocks”.
Moreover, the ETC Twitter account further claimed that the excessive hash rate could have likely come from crypto miner manufacturer Linzhi, which was supposedly testing new machines with a 1,400Mh/s hashrate.
Ever since the incidence, Ethereum Classic has lost nearly 10% of its price, according to the chart on WorldCoinIndex. At the press time, ETC is trading at $4.98.