By
Temitope Olatunji
April 26th, 2024
The perpetrators of the attack reorganized roughly 12 blocks leading to a major compromise of the Bitcoin SV blockchain.
On Tuesday, August 4, the Bitcoin SV (Satoshi Version) blockchain network suffered a massive 51% attack. Crypto data analytics platform CoinMetrics confirmed this attack through its FARUM risk management platform. Lucas Nazzi was the first to report this news stating:
“BSV is going through a massive 51% attack. After an attempted attack yesterday, some serious hashing power was unleashed today at 11:46AM and attackers are succeeding. Over a dozen blocks are being reorgd & up to 3 versions of the chain being mined simultaneously across pools”.
The attack lasted for a long duration of 12 hours as the perpetrators could reorganize roughly 12 blocks. During this period, the perpetrators managed to reorganize nearly 14 blocks.
In a confirmation of the same, CoinMetrics wrote all of its FARUm nodes had witnessed a deep reorg with a max depth of 14 blocks. It didn’t encounter any further reorg events. However, there are still some synchronization conflicts occurring in major mining pools.
Bitcoin SV has often faced scrutiny with respect to its reputation and trustworthiness. Controversial personality Craig Wright is the leader behind Bitcoin SV. He’s also the self-acclaimed Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous personality behind Bitcoin Core (BTC).
A 515 attack means that a single entity can control a majority of the hashrate for a given blockchain. This is not a good sign since its shows the blockchain’s vulnerability to external attacks. Such attacks usually occur on weaker blockchain that is unsafe with less appeal to miners.
Bitcoin Association Issues A Statement
Bitcoin Association, an industry group supporting the development of Bitcoin SV also issued a statement for the same. It noted:
“In response to the ongoing re-organisation attack on the #BSV network, Bitcoin Association recommends that node operators mark the fraudulent chain as invalid. This will immediately return your node to the chain supported by honest miners and lock the attacker’s chain out.”
The Bitcoin SV blockchain network came into existence in November 2018 as a result of the contentious hard fork in the Bitcoin Cash blockchain. It has a similar monetary policy to that of BCH and BTC.
Soon after the 51% attack, the price of Bitcoin SV (BSV) came crashing down. At press time, BSV is trading 4% down at a price of $136.69 and a market cap of $2.8 billion.