The Bitcoin Gold (BTG) blockchain has suffered a 51% assault leading to over $70,00zero value of BTG being double spent. In accordance with a GitH
The Bitcoin Gold (BTG) blockchain has suffered a 51% assault leading to over $70,00zero value of BTG being double spent. In accordance with a GitHub post by James Lovejoy, a researcher at MIT’s Digital Forex Initiative, the hard-fork of Bitcoin was hit by two deep reorganizations of over 10 blocks on Jan. 23 and 24.
A 51% assault is a state of affairs the place a single entity or group controls over half of the hashpower securing a blockchain. This then permits management over affirmation of recent transactions, and the facility to reverse accomplished transactions, permitting the double spending of cash.
Two 51% assaults in six hours
Within the first assault, simply after 18:00 GMT on Jan. 23, 14 blocks have been faraway from the blockchain and 13 then added. 1,900 BTG value roughly $19,00zero on the time have been double spent within the redirect of 1 transaction.
Simply over six hours later, within the early hours of Jan. 24, one other assault eliminated 15 blocks and added 16. 5,267 BTG ($53,00zero on the time) have been double spent in three transactions that have been redirected.
Does crime pay?
Bitcoin Gold makes use of the Equihash algorithm often known as Zhash, in an effort to stay mineable on shopper graphics playing cards. Based mostly on Nicehash market costs for Zhash, the estimated price of every blockchain reorganization assault was round $1,700.
The attacker would have recouped across the similar worth in block rewards, which means that the assaults at the least broke even, and have been probably worthwhile if the double spend was efficiently extracted from the system.
Following the assault, the worth of Bitcoin Gold spiked. On Jan. 26, the coin moved from $10.42 to $11.60 in a matter of hours. At press time, the coin is up almost 14% on the day to commerce at $11.74.
Binance will increase escrow intervals
On the time of the assault, main cryptocurrency trade Binance allowed buying and selling of BTG deposits after six confirmations, and withdrawal after 12 confirmations. A 14 or 15 block reorganization would subsequently have evaded each of those escrow intervals.
Binance has since elevated its withdrawal requirement to 20 blocks, though this nonetheless doesn’t preclude the potential for a 51% assault being financially viable.
As Cointelegraph reported, Bitcoin Gold was beforehand the topic of a 51% assault again in Might 2018, when an estimated $18 million of BTG was overspent, resulting in the coin being delisted on Bittrex.