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Unknown hackers may have successfully hijacked the Ethereum Classic blockchain through a rare so-called "51% attack".
Cryptocurrency exchanges, including Coinbase, have frozen token trading amidst fears that the exceptionally rare blockchain attack has been performed.
According to Coinbase, the reorganization of the blockchain has led to the attacker the control of tokens worth almost 400,000 pounds.
The dott. Patrick McCorry, assistant professor of computer science at King's College in London, told Sky News that it was important to distinguish Ethereum – the second largest cryptocurrency behind Bitcoin – and Ethereum Classic, which is among the top 20 and divided by Ethereum in 2015.
"The technology behind a cryptocurrency, the blockchain, is responsible for recording all transactions on the network", explained Dr. McCorry.
"It takes this name because it is a chain of blocks and each block is simply a list of authorized transactions.
"In Ethereum Classic, a transaction is considered" final "and" confirmed "only if it is in the blockchain with the most blocks."
The blockchain is powered by individual "mining" transactions, which use the power of the computer to transmit information to other users, for which they are rewarded with units of currency of the new currency.
Because of these new currency currencies, cryptocurrency mining can potentially be a very lucrative business, even if currency volatility and the difficulty of successfully adding a block make it a risky investment.
The blockchain is intended as a distributed, transparent and immutable ledger that uses cryptography to mathematically verify transactions and ensure the trust of all in the currency.
However, for a long time it has been theorized that an attacker who controlled more than 51% of the mining sector on the network could expressly choose to spend twice as many coins.
In a 51% attack, attackers would create a fork in the network by transmitting conflicting information to different users, allowing them to send the same coin to multiple parties.
Dr McCorry said: "The problem of a 51% attack is that a single person has more than half the computing power of the network (ie they have a much larger computer warehouse) and can create blocks faster than anyone else. .
"What happened in the Ethereum Classic is that a single person managed to repeat the entire network effort for 100 blocks, create a longer blockchain and reverse a transaction that paid about $ 500,000," explained Dr . McCorry.
A mining group controlled up to 60% of the Ethereum Classic network during the alleged attack, even if results are being investigated.
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