Last week, a 51% attack was made on the Ethereum Classic network. Initially it was reported that there was no harm, but according to Bitquery, the hackers were able to steal 807,260 ETC.
The 51% attack on the Ethereum Classic blockchain was carried out on the morning of August 1 – the network split and 3,693 “extra” blocks were added to it. Then analysts did not find any malicious activity. However, Alexey Studnev from Bitquery released a report according to which hackers received 807,260 ETC ($ 5.7 million) through double-spend transactions. Now the Ethereum Classic network is split again.
The report says the attackers took advantage of the 2Miners mining pool shutdown and purchased mining capacity through Nicehash. These powers were used to carry out a 51% attack. 17.5 BTC ($ 192,000) were spent on their purchase, so the costs of the attackers paid off by 2,800%. A total of 11 double spend transactions were detected.
In addition, today the Etherchain service discovered that another 51% attack occurred on the network. This time more than 4,000 extra blocks were mined. It is not yet known whether the attack is being carried out by the same attackers as a week ago, or whether the technique was used by other hackers.
“ETC just needs to switch to PoS. Even though this protocol is risky, at the moment the transition to it will reduce the risks, “- said the co-founder of Ethereum Vitalik Buterin on Twitter.
Recall that in June this year, the Phoenix hard fork took place on the Ethereum Classic blockchain, which became the third in a year.
