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It has just come to light that the hacker behind the recent 51% attack against the Ethereum Classic blockchain has returned around USD 100k worth of tokens to the governing organization behind the top-20 altcoin.
This news was first published by crypto exchange āGate.ioā on their official website a couple of days back.
BREAKING!!! Such a badass whitehat attacker act
The ETC 51% attacker returned the entire $100K to Gate!!! https://t.co/v1YwU40xJY this is a such a chivalrous behavior to raise awareness of 51% attack and give out warning on coins with low hashrate security pic.twitter.com/57iBGhbDz2
ā Dovey Wan (@DoveyWan) January 12, 2019
More On The Case
As soon as word of this aforementioned development came to the forefront, the folks over at Gate.io tried to contact the hacker so as to find out his/her real motives behind this act. However, at press time, their attempts have yet to bear any fruit.
In relation to the matter, Gate.ioās core executive brass has not been able to decipher the exact motive behind this incidentā thus leading many people to believe that this entire ordeal was an exercise to raise user awareness about the risks associated with the trading/security of crypto assets (especially those that make use of the Proof of Work protocol).
āOn Jan.10, we found that the recent ETC 51% attacker returned 100k USD value of ETC back to Gate.io. We were trying to contact the attacker, but we havenāt got any reply until now. We still donāt know the reason. If the attacker didnāt run it for profit, he might be a white hacker who wanted to remind people of the risks in blockchain consensus and hashing power security.ā
Other Key Details Worth Bearing In Mind
A couple of days back, a spokesperson for the Gate.io team took to the internet to state that āthere is still some possibility of a similar attack taking place on the ETC ecosystemā in the near future, since it is still quite inexpensive to rent the necessary hash power to gain around 51% control over the currencyās native blockchain.
On the issue, Gate.ioās security team posted a message on ETCās Twitter handle asking them to increase the ānumber of confirmations needed to admit a transactionā so as to ensure a higher degree of overall security.
āBased on our analysis, the hashing power of ETC network is still not strong enough, and itās still possible to rent enough hashing power to launch another 51% attack. Gate.io has raised the ETC confirmation number to 4000 and launched a strict 51% detect for enhanced protection. We also suggest other ETC exchanges to take actions to protect the trader from blockchain rollback/reorg.ā
Final Take
While some people have been saying that this entire episode was the doing of a white hat hacker, there are those within the crypto community who have taken a highly critical and skeptical stance towards the matter.
For example, eToroās Mati Greenspan was quick to point out that the amount returned by the hacker was a āmere fractionā of what he/she had actually stolen (thus it is was silly to assume that this was simply a case of ethical hacking).
Disclaimer
The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not reflect the views of Bitcoin Insider. Every investment and trading move involves risk - this is especially true for cryptocurrencies given their volatility. We strongly advise our readers to conduct their own research when making a decision.