The crypto-verse is not new to hacks and attacks, however, the Ethereum Classic network endured an array of 51% attacks over the last month. The most recent attack took place just two days ago which initiated the reorganization of over 7,000 blocks on the network or about two days’ worth of mining. In the light of the last three attacks, the Ethereum Classic Labs have decided to step up by launching a new strategy that includes law enforcement and regulators from all across the globe.
Law Enforcement To Protect The Ethereum Classic Network
While Ethereum Classic Labs aka ETC Labs has an investigation underway to probe the roots of the latest attack, the previous attacks have led to the initiation of the platform’s decision to bring in the big guns. Back on 30 July and 1 August 2020, the Ethereum Classic network underwent a 51 percent attack following the purchase of hash rates from Nice Hash. Previously this company had been swimming in troubled waters after losing around $62 million in Bitcoin. To steer away from potential attacks via hash rental platforms, ETC Labs intends to seek accountability as well as transparency to hash rental by engaging law enforcement.
ETC Labs wrote a Medium post about the same and pointed out that several crypto platforms are subject to scrutiny from lawmakers all over the world. Anti-money laundering [AML] and KYC have been made mandatory for every crypto platform. Citing NiceHash as a precedent, ETC Labs noted that hash rental platforms often resort to illegal activities. The post further read,
“With little or no KYC, AML, or crypto address screening, customers have the ability to rent hash rate to potentially launder cryptocurrency for freshly minted tokens with no history. Considering how important hash rate is to the security of Proof-of-Work blockchains, this is a serious vulnerability for the blockchain ecosystem as a whole.”
Additionally, ETC Labs affirmed that it had already commenced working with regulators and officials in “relevant jurisdictions”.
While many lauded ETC Labs for its latest move, a few others outrightly condemned the initiative. Bitrefill’s John Carvalho tweeted in response to the ETC Labs’ latest initiative. The tweet read,
Idiots. Don't make new laws to save your dead coin. Stop, @barrysilbert! https://t.co/NSA24Bdcv2
— John Carvalho (@BitcoinErrorLog) September 1, 2020
Back in mid-August, following the second 51% attack on the network, ETC Labs had proposed an “ETC Network Security Plan“. This elaborate plan consisted of both immediate as well as long term measures to tackle potential attacks. Change in the mining algorithm was one of the primary focuses of the plan. The platform intends to transition the network’s mining algorithm from Ethash aka Dagger Hashimoto Proof-of-Work to either Ethereum’s Keccak256 or RandomX.