Breaking: Coinbase Says Ethereum Classic Attack Included $500,000 in Double Spends

Breaking: Coinbase Says Ethereum Classic Attack Included $500,000 in Double Spends

Contradicting reports from the Ethereum Classic camp, cryptocurrency exchange giant Coinbase announced this afternoon that the apparent ETC bitcoin $BTC (BTC) [BTC] reorganization attack had been accompanied by around half a million dollars in double spends.

According to Coinbase, the firm first identified the deep chain reorganization on Jan. 5, at which point it halted on-chain ETC payments to protect customers — and the crypto exchange itself — from falling prey to a double spend attack.

From the post:

On 1/5/2019, Coinbase detected a deep chain reorganization of the Ethereum Classic bitcoin $BTC (BTC) [BTC] that included a double spend. In order to protect customer funds, we immediately paused movements of these funds on the ETC bitcoin $BTC (BTC) [BTC].

Notably, this was not a one-time event. Indeed, the attacks are apparently ongoing, but as of the time of writing at 3:15 pm ET, Coinbase said that it had identified at least nine reorganizations containing double spends. Altogether, these double spends amounted to 88,500 ETC or about $460,000 at current prices.

The firm wrote:

We observed repeated deep reorganizations of the Ethereum Classic bitcoin $BTC (BTC) [BTC], most of which contained double spends. The total value of the double spends that we have observed thus far is 88,500 ETC (~$460,000).

Coinbase stressed that while it had identified the double spends, it had not been the target of these attacks and that all customer funds remained secure. At present, it is unclear who the attackers targeted.

CCN previously reported that the Ethereum Classic might have been the target of a successful 51 percent attack, though the project’s official Twitter account attributed the bitcoin $BTC (BTC) [BTC] reorganization to a crypto mining manufacturer testing a new batch of ETC mining rigs and claimed that no double spends had been identified.

Developing…Check back for updates.

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Published at Mon, 07 Jan 2019 20:12:44 +0000