Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase revealed today that an apparent Ethereum Classic blockchain reorganization attack caused $500,000 in double spending. Ethereum Classic immediately fell down in price after the news came out.
Bad news for Ethereum Classic today: Coinbase, one of the leading cryptocurrency exchanges, has announced that an apparent ETC blockchain reorganization attack had been accompanied by around half a million dollars in double spending (88,500 ETC).
Coinbase revealed the news via the following tweet:
On 1/5/2019, Coinbase detected a deep chain reorganization of the Ethereum Classic blockchain that included a double spend. In order to protect customer funds, we immediately paused movements of these funds on the ETC blockchain. Read more here: https://t.co/vCx89dz44m
— Coinbase (@coinbase) January 7, 2019
Furthermore, in a blog post the company wrote:
“We observed repeated deep reorganizations of the Ethereum Classic blockchain, 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).”
Until this moment, it is not clear who was the target of the attackers, but Coinbase reassured its users that the exchange itself had not been the target of these attacks and that all customer funds remained secure.
Interestingly enough, according to the team behind Ethereum Classic, Coinbase decided to share the news publicly before contacting the ETC team about the attack. This according to a tweet from the official Ethereum Classic account:
Regarding @coinbase account of recent events: they allegedly detected double spends but unfortunately did not connect with ETC personnel regarding the attack.
This is still very much an ongoing process. https://t.co/in1OGdV8T9— Ethereum Classic (@eth_classic) January 7, 2019
Because of the bad news, Ethereum Classic is currently down more than 8 percent. At the time of writing, the price of Ethereum Classic is hovering around $5.00, after seeing a decline of $0.20 in the last 2 hours according to data from CoinMarketCap.
