The year has began and so have the attacks by cyber criminals. Coinbase, the US largest cryptocurrency exchange, was forced to cease the trading of Ethereum Classic after the network experienced unusual high hashing power. The burst was caused by an unknown miner.
Coinbase has publicly announced through a blog post that they have detected “deep chain reorganization” and that they are suspending all ETC trading. The additional reogranizations were around eight, and the total amount was around $460,000 or around 88,500 Ethereum Classic coins.
As of now, the trading is still suspended. Coinbase is further investigating the major cause and it has not announced when exactly the trading will resume.
The interesting part in the news, however, is the word “reorganization” used by Coinbase. Many may wonder if this is an attack, or a reorganization and what essentially is the difference between the two. An attack is a malicious, intentional act of taking over the network. Reorganization, on the other hand, is more taking advantage of the low hash power, double spending before the normal hash power returns. This is according to the tech coordinator of ETC Labs, Mr. Stev Lohja.
In addition, the process of “chain reorganization” is rather complicated and interesting, since essentially the miner who is behind the whole thing, mines ahead of the other in the network, and the chain that becomes the longest wins. The rest of the blocks, or the gap in the network is orphaned.
Ethereum Classic also came with a blog post, saying that the high hash power may be owing to the activities of the Chinese company Linzhi, with a hash rate of around 1,400/Mh.