Bad Actors Rent Hashing Power to Hit Bitcoin Gold With New 51% Attacks

gepubliceerd op by Coindesk | gepubliceerd op

Bitcoin gold, a cryptocurrency that forked from bitcoin in 2017, has again been hit by 51-percent attacks.

Occurring Thursday, according to tweets from the bitcoin gold team, two deep blockchain reorganizations resulted in double spends of 1,900 BTG and 5,267 BTG, respectively.

"We do not know if they successfully extracted any value from an exchange. Advanced risk control systems in exchanges make it likely one or both attacks failed," they wrote.

"Evidence" suggests the attacks used mining power obtained through mining power marketplace NiceHash, according to the team.

A 51-percent attack is conducted by actors who are able mine a blockchain network with more than half its hashing power.

In another tweet, bitcoin gold said: "We are in contact with exchanges to offer security help and got positive feedback from them. The targeted exchange(s) have already taken effective measures."

Based on NiceHash data, the estimate cost to the attacker of each reorg was roughly 0.2 bitcoin, he added - around the amount that would have been given out in block rewards.

Even if exchanges manage to block the double-spent coins, the attack would have broken even.

The is not the first time bitcoin gold has seen such an attack.

Interestingly, bitcoin gold's value has risen since news of the attack broke.

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