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Ripple Labs, one of the most popular companies in the blockchain and crypto space, seems to be generating more controversies among the crypto community. David Schwartz, the Chief Technology Officer at Ripple, said that the firm works in a way that protects the network from a 51% attack.
The comments came at a moment in which the Ethereum Classic (ETC) network has experienced a large 51% attack that resulted in the loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to some reports.
Ripple is usually criticized for being centralized and working with the banking industry, which is just what the crypto space wants to fight against. Nevertheless, Ripple usually answers back saying that Bitcoin is centralized due to the fact that mining operations are located mainly in China.
Back on Monday, Coinbase, one of the largest companies in the crypto space, launched a warning regarding a 51% attack that Ethereum Classic was experiencing. In a blog post released by Mark Nesbit, a security engineer at Coinbase, the ETC network experienced block reorgs due to a malicious attacker that had more than 51% of the network’s hash rate.
Charlie Lee, the creator of Litecoin (LTC) wrote on Twitter that coins that are not dominant in their respective consensus mechanisms are susceptible to attacks. According to him, it would only cost $5,000 to attack the ETC network for just an hour.
Shwartz wrote on Twitter quoting Coinbase’s article that another PoW blockchain suffered a new double spend attack. He then added that the XRP Ledger and its distributed agreement protocol eliminates that risk.
Another PoW blockchain suffers a double spend attack, this time ETC. XRP Ledger's distributed agreement protocol eliminates this risk.https://t.co/RQBEWAXmRD
— David Schwartz (@JoelKatz) January 7, 2019
Several XRP supporters started to talk about it and support the comments made by Mr. Schwartz. However, other individuals were commenting in a negative way about what Schwartz wrote.
For example, Crypto Bobby answered that although it is true that Ethereum Classic was vulnerable to a 51% attack, Ripple and its ledger could be heavily affected by regulations or governments around the world.
This is similar to what Gab.com, the popular social network wrote. Gab mentioned that if Ripple Labs is able to freeze users’ funds, then XRP is not so decentralized.
Pro tip: if Ripple Labs can freeze your funds at anytime for any reason you might have a scamcoin on your hands that isn't decentralized.
Might as well just open a normal bank account lol.
— Gab.com (@getongab) January 7, 2019
Ripple’s CEO Brad Garlinghouse commented that people are spreading their FUD against XRP and Ripple Labs. He added that there is much misinformation regarding XRP’s status and its underlying nature.
At the moment there is no more information about ETC and what happened to the network.
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