Yesterday, August 3, a 51% attack was made on the Bitcoin SV cryptocurrency network. According to analysts, 14 blocks were reorganized.
The attack was initially reported by CoinMetrics analyst Lucas Nuzzi on the evening of August 3. According to him wordsAt around 11.45 am yesterday, “serious hashing power” suddenly appeared on the network.
Later CoinMetrics confirmed this information and stated that its FARUM blockchain security monitoring tool recorded the reorganization of 14 blocks in the Bitcoin SV network. CoinMetrics noted that the attack is over, but the impact on mining pools is still there. As of the evening of August 3, the pools were mining coins at “completely different” block heights, Nuzzi said.
A 51% attack allows an attacker to gain partial control of the blockchain. It can be used for a double spend attack, with the attacker’s chance of success being maximized. Another possibility of 51% attack is blockchain disruption through full or partial stopping of transaction confirmation.
The essence of the attack is that an attacker obtains more than 50% of the hash rate in blockchains using PoW, or 50% of coins in blockchains using PoS. The greater the percentage of control he can get, the faster and more successful the attack will be. Having an advantage over other miners or validators, an attacker can create an alternative block chain and overwrite a certain number of recent blocks with the transactions he needs.
On the evening of August 3, The Bitcoin Association recommended node operators to mark the attacker’s chain blocks as invalid. The Bitcoin SV blockchain, which emerged from the Bitcoin Cash hard fork, came under four attacks in July. It is not yet clear who is behind the attack. CoinMetrics is studying a chain of attackers looking for “traces of double spending on exchanges,” Nuzzi said.
According to him, the main Bitcoin SV mining pools are still trying to get things going and mine blocks on the same chain. Bitcoin SV hashrate fell by almost 50% from Monday to Tuesday, according to Bitinfocharts. However, Nuzzi believes that this is a consequence of the confusion after the reorganization of the blocks.
Last spring, analysts reported that Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin SV became vulnerable to a 51% attack after halving the reward to miners.
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