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Coinbase Suspends Ethereum Classic (ETC) Trading After Double-Spend Attacks (zdnet.com)
Cryptocurrency trading portal Coinbase delisted the Ethereum Classic (ETC) currency Monday after detecting a series of double-spend attacks over the last three days. From a report: In layman terms, double-spend attacks are when a malicious actor gains the majority computational power inside a blockchain, which they then use to enforce unauthorized transactions over legitimate ones. According to a security alert published today by Coinbase security engineer Mark Nesbitt, this is exactly what's been happening on the Ethereum Classic blockchain for the past three days, since January 5. Nesbitt says that a malicious actor has carried out 11 (at the time of writing) double-spend attacks during which he moved funds from legitimate accounts to their own. [...] According to Crypto51, it only costs $5,029 to rent enough computing powerto overwhelm the ETC blockchain with your own miners and gain 51 percent hashing power to carry out a double-spend attack.
Tell me again why bitcoin is so much more secure than the traditional banking system.
When a physical bank is robbed, everyone who has dollars in their pockets still has whole dollars. The theft had zero effect on the value of your pocket or what you can buy. When a crypto-currency exchange gets hacked (aka robbed), the value of what you own can tumble. Plus, add in the shear insecurity of crypto-currency, and you have the reasons why it's a complete failure and nonsense.
These days when a physical bank is robbed, they have insurance backing up their virtual dollars, as well as tracking that can get back stolen (digital) money in many cases (from what I've been told, not an expert). So while the government can track your transactions through banks, the bank also provides more security. All depends on what you value most.
Btw, ETC is a minority fork of ETH, so nobody cares about ETC and it has near zero use
Somebody cared enough to marshall enough computing power to overwhelm the network, which is why we are discussing this.
I find it amusing how bitcoin and its associated spin offs have replicated financial history. PhD candidates will be writing papers on this idiocy for years to come.
And one is also expected to trust at least half of those controlling the computing resources... not sure I trust a fraction of that number.
And "trust" is your only option- it's all you can do, you can't rely on law enforcement to protect you eCoins. Because eCoins are not backed by government or insured by governments, governments are less inclined to help you get your money back if stolen by thieves and hackers.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch