A 51% attack is one of the worst things that can happen to a blockchain, as it undermines its security as an immutable ledger.
While such an attack is expected to be detrimental to a blockchain’s viability, two miners reportedly executed a 51% attack on the Bitcoin Cash (BCH) blockchain under everyone’s noses and nobody seems to care.
What in the Hell Happened?
According to a series of tweets on May 24 by Guy Swann, host of the Cryptoconomy Podcast, two BCH miners – BTC.top and BTC.com – performed the attack to stop an unknown miner from taking a significant number of coins that were accidentally sent to “anyone can spend” addresses since Bitcoin Cash’s inception in 2017.
The coins that were accidentally sent to these addresses were locked up by devs who implemented a protocol rule called CLEANSTACK, making the coins unspendable. However, on May 15 this protocol rule was removed in an unintentional hard fork, basically handing the coins to miners.
During this hard fork, a third, unknown miner exploited a bug that allow them to take the coins from the “anyone can spend” addresses.
Upon seeing this happen, the two aforementioned miners who have majority control of the network were able to easily roll back the chain and prevent the unknown miner from taking these coins.
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So just 2 miners, in secret & w/ no trouble, took it upon themselves to remove 2 blocks w/ another’s TXs, & replace with their own.Bizarrely, some are celebrating!
Some devs are quiet, but jtoomim (#BCH dev) called it “justice,” & “punishment” for “antisocial behavior.” pic.twitter.com/ntiaV21YBG
— Guy Swann⚡ (@TheCryptoconomy) May 24, 2019
What Does This Mean for Bitcoin Cash Going Forward?
The fact that Bitcoin Cash’s blockchain was just rolled back with ease and without consulting anyone, is a serious matter, and it sets a dangerous precedent.
While the 51% attack wasn’t carried out with malicious intent, it still has serious implications for Bitcoin Cash’s blockchain.
As stated by Swann, he has only come across one BCH developer who sees this recent event as a dangerous precedent:
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One dev seems to be actually discussing how dangerous of a precedent this was & has the only write-up that I can find so far on what exactly occurred. #BCH pic.twitter.com/PncbVFAyBR— Guy Swann⚡ (@TheCryptoconomy) May 24, 2019
Moreover, Swann stated that this rollback of Bitcoin Cash’s blockchain essentially kills the blockchain’s Lindy Effect as well as any perception that BCH is decentralized, censorship-resistant money.
Going forward, Swann believes that Bitcoin Cash will be in a political mess as the community decides whether the two miners who rolled back the blockchains were justified in their actions. After all, these miners have just shown that they can virtually take complete control of the network whenever they want.
However, so far it appears that nobody cares about what just happened, or they just want to forget it. The price of Bitcoin Cash has only gone higher since the rollback, and is currently at a yearly high of $456.
Do you think this 51% attack/rollback on Bitcoin Cash was a big deal? Were the miners right to do what they did? How will this event affect the project going forward? Let us know what you think in the comment section below.
