THELOGICALINDIAN - The Vertcoin VTC blockchain was 51 attacked on Sunday December 1 which saw 603 VTC blocks replaced by 553 blocks from the antagonist This is the additional time the ASIC aggressive Vertcoin alternation was ambushed as the arrangement suffered a 300block reorg a year ago
Also read: Cryptocurrency Projects Aiming to be ‘ASIC Resistant’ Have Little Success
Vertcoin 51% Attacked Again
Vertcoin, a angle of the Bitcoin protocol, is an another cryptocurrency that’s been about back January 2014. The association and developers abaft the activity accept VTC is altered because it claims to be ASIC resistant. However, throughout October and December 2018, the Vertcoin arrangement dealt with a alternation of 51% attacks and a cardinal of blockchain reorganizations (reorg).
A 51% advance is back a distinct article (miner) takes added than 50% of the network’s hashpower, acceptance them to reorg blocks and bifold absorb coins. The 300-block reorg on Vertcoin aftermost year amount added than $100,000 from bifold spends. The bearings invoked VTC developers to change its proof-of-work algorithm to addition algorithm alleged Lyra2rev3. Less than a year after on December 1, 2019, the Vertcoin alternation suffered addition 51% attack. James Lovejoy, Vertcoin’s advance developer, explained the situation:
Cloud-Mining Service Nicehash Blamed Again
Similarly to last year’s attack, the captured hashrate was abhorrent on Nicehash. The aggregation sells hashpower to individuals and acts as a hashpower agent exchange that connects sellers and miners. Lovejoy remarked that he noticed on November 30 “a ample advance in hashrate rental prices for Lyra2rev3 on Nicehash.” “This was accumulated with workers affiliated to Nicehash’s degree server actuality beatific assignment for alien (non-public) Vertcoin blocks,” Lovejoy added. Last year’s advance was abhorrent on Nicehash too back assemblage said “there’s too abundant hashrate for hire at too low a price, consistent in aught capex and low opex to do attacks.” Despite actuality ASIC resistant, cloud-mining casework are now able to action barter cogent portions of CPU and GPU-based hashrates.
Resisting mining absorption has been a huge affair for a array of blockchains and the Monero (XMR) arrangement has had its allotment of grievances as well. Last year XMR saw multiple forks as developers approved to bolster ASIC resistance. In May 2018, the Bitcoin Gold (BTG) activity suffered a 51% advance and lost $18 million in one fell swoop. A ample allocation of the BTG bifold spends from the advance was baseborn from Bittrex, eventually causing the U.S. barter to delist BTG.
With Sunday’s Vertcoin attack, Lovejoy emphasized that “it is accessible that Bittrex was the aboriginal target.” However, the bifold spends were aborted because Bittrex had their wallet disabled. “It is additionally accessible that no bifold absorb was anytime intended, and the advance was a affidavit of abstraction or demolition attack,” Lovejoy added. Lovejoy said the post-attack assay of the Nicehash adjustment book at the time of the advance had apparent “a ample advance in hashrate rental price” from both U.S. and EU markets. But afterwards the attack, the rental amount subsided, Lovejoy stressed, abiding to the baseline bazaar equilibrium.
What do you anticipate about Vertcoin accepting attacked again? Why do you anticipate attacks like these happen? Let us apperceive what you anticipate about this accountable in the comments area below.
Image credits: Shutterstock, Vertcoin logo, and Lovejoy’s Github gist.
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