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Bitcoin gold, a cryptocurrency that forked from bitcoin in 2017, has once more been hit by 51-percent assaults.
Occurring Thursday, in keeping with tweets from the bitcoin gold group, two deep blockchain reorganizations (or reorgs) resulted in double spends of 1,900 BTG and 5,267 BTG, respectively. The losses quantity to round $87,500 at present costs.
“We have no idea in the event that they efficiently extracted any worth from an trade. Superior danger management techniques in exchanges make it doubtless one or each assaults failed,” they wrote.
“Proof” suggests the assaults used mining energy obtained by way of mining energy market NiceHash, in keeping with the group.
A 51-percent assault is carried out by actors who’re ready mine a blockchain community with greater than half its hashing energy (therefore the identify). This permits transactions to be rewritten, doubtlessly diverting beforehand spent funds to a distinct tackle, as was the case right here.
Writing on GitHub on the weekend, James Lovejoy, lead maintainer of the vertcoin cryptocurrency and a researcher at MIT’s Digital Forex Initiative, mentioned the attacker mined blocks with an tackle that may be seen right here.
In one other tweet, bitcoin gold mentioned: “We’re in touch with exchanges to supply safety assist and obtained optimistic suggestions from them. The focused trade(s) have already taken efficient measures.”
Whereas the exchanges weren’t named, Lovejoy mentioned Binance has elevated its withdrawal requirement for BTG to 20 confirmations from 12 for the reason that assault.
Primarily based on NiceHash information, the estimate value to the attacker of every reorg was roughly 0.2 BTC (~$1,700), he added – across the quantity that might have been given out in block rewards. As such, even when exchanges handle to dam the double-spent cash, the assault would have damaged even.
The just isn’t the primary time bitcoin gold has seen such an assault. In Could 2018, round $18 million within the cryptocurrency was reportedly double spent.
Curiously, bitcoin gold’s worth has risen since information of the assault broke. At time of writing, the value of BTG is round $12.20 – up 18.70 p.c over 24 hours.
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The chief in blockchain information, CoinDesk is a media outlet that strives for the very best journalistic requirements and abides by a strict set of editorial insurance policies. CoinDesk is an unbiased working subsidiary of Digital Forex Group, which invests in cryptocurrencies and blockchain startups.
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