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A sudden increase in transaction fees on the classic ethereum blockchain has some developers speculating if cryptocurrency exchanges could be at risk of attack, a development that follows the 51% attack last week where more than $ 200,000 they have been stolen from at least one exchange.
In the last 24 hours, average transaction fees on the blockchain have risen to $ 6.10, almost 800% from $ 0.71 the previous day, the highest transaction cost peak in the history of the blockchain according to the BitInfoCharts data source.
As a result, the classic ethereum miners have obtained up to 844 ETCs (or about $ 3,600) by checking the transaction blocks on Sunday, an unusual event for the network that continues to run the original software instance of the ethereum project.
However, uptick is one of the many clues that lead developers to think that this may be evidence that an attacker is using a known exploit to target certain cryptocurrency exchanges.
Starting at 11:15 am (UTC) on Sunday, a user of the ethereum classic Discord channel reported an almost doubling of the power of the hash, or total computer power, to verify the transactions and the transaction. extraction of new blocks, a figure corroborated on blockchain analysis sites like CoinWarz.
Another source of data, GasTracker, said that the classic mining pool of ethereum 2miners represented a large majority of the additional hashrate that hit up to 3,054.29 GH / s from an approximate short-term average in advance of 160 GH / s.
Although no one is able to identify who exactly is sending transactions at such high rates, there is speculation about this person's motives.
By placing a link that identifies a known vulnerability in the gas ethereum tokens, Burns states that the sender of these transactions is trying to exploit a loophole that allows for the creation of gas tokens through free exchanges.
As a background, GasToken is an application created last year that allows users to store and sell "gas" – the fees charged by the network for all operations, such as calculating smart contracts. This is useful for users who want to save on transaction costs by allowing them to tokenize the gas and store it when the network rates are low or to sell them when prices are high.
An exploit discovered by the Smart K-level development startup last October revealed that the trade in cryptocurrencies that do not put a limit to the use of gas could end up draining the funds from attackers who coined new gas tokens.
Burns explained to CoinDesk:
"An exploit was found a few months ago, where exchanges were paying [gas] for the exchange withdrawal. Unknown users used it to collect and coin free gas tokens [by] having exchanges pay large quantities of gas ".
The mystery continues
Some experts, including the classic ethereum developer Yaz Khoury, agree with Burn's analysis that this could be a GasToken exploit. But others are not so sure.
Speaking with CoinDesk, Anthony Lusardi explained that from a look at the accident on Sunday, it seems to him that "someone has bought a hashrate to my blocks and then other addresses have made transactions of high value".
He added that it is unclear at the moment whether the money is actually transferred through exchanges, suggesting that the activity may not be indicative of any GasToken exploits.
Likewise, Bitfly founder and CEO – who runs the Ethermine eteeeum mining pool – Peter Pratscher told CoinDesk:
"I do not think the high transaction fees are related to the use of GasToken … It is not known whether it was an error or an intentional measure to subsidize the ETC mining pool and prevent further 51% attacks" .
This means that the increase in transaction fees could be considered positive for the general security of the network if they continue and actually attract more mining media to the network. Pratscher added that from the transactions he has analyzed so far, all "are transfers of standard values from A to B that do not interact with a [smart] to contract."
In fact, the classical ethereum community still has many questions to answer after the events of last week have caused massive reorganizations of blocks.
One of the most damaging consequences of the attack last week is that the cryptocurrency exchanges have reported lost funds.
Still, on an optimistic note, the Gate.io exchange reported this weekend that about half of the money lost (around $ 100,000) was returned. Since then, Gate.io says it is taking extra precautions to protect users' funds.
After increasing the confirmation times of the 500 blockade last Tuesday, the confirmation number is now 4,000, which indicates a significantly longer waiting period for users who send the classic ethereum funds through the exchange.
Classic Ethereum coin through Shutterstock
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