Craig Wright’s baby – Bitcoin SV (BSV) – is falling apart before his eyes, and there is nothing he can do to stop it. It all began back in November 2018 when Bitcoin Cash underwent a hard fork. Bitcoin Cash ABC took a commanding lead early on, and BSV ended up throwing in the towel and conceding the Bitcoin Cash name. Since then, Wright has gone on to defend himself as the true identity behind Satoshi Nakamoto, causing numerous crypto exchanges to delist BSV. In what could very well be a final blow to BSV and Wright’s credibility, the BSV blockchain was hit by two separate reorgs – indicating two 51% attacks in the space of 1 hour.
What is a Block Reorg?
A block reorg is when a miner controls 51% or more of the total network hash rate and can begin mining a new chain and force the network to accept this as the dominant chain. It opens the door for double spend attacks which could destroy the value of BSV. The first block reorg took place at block 578,639 and continued until block 578,647, at which point the second block reorg occurred and it merged back into the true BSV chain at block 578,642. The attack took place at 1pm on April 18th and ended shortly after 2pm the same day. According to BitMEX Research, no double spend attack occurred during the block reorg.
What Was the Point of the Block Reorg?
You might be sat there wondering what the point of the block reorg was if you’re not going to double spend, but the answer is rather simple – just to show how unsecure BSV really is. According to Crypto51 – a site dedicated to tracking the cost to perform a 51% attack on blockchain networks – it would only cost $6,000 per hour to 51% attack BSV. It’s currently unprofitable to mine BSV due to its price tanking on the delisting news, meaning a 51% attack is likely to become more commonplace. The attacker likely just wanted to highlight how unpopular BSV is and how there is nothing Craig “Faketoshi” Wright can do to bring it back to life.
Block Reorg Hitting All Users
BSV only uses one client, meaning that everyone using the BSV network was affected by the attack. Blockchain networks such as Ethereum have two clients – Geth and Parity – which limits the damages from block reorgs to one client. The impacted client can then restore the true blockchain from the other client – making it safer and more secure by design. BSV on the other hand only uses one client, meaning there is no way to ever repair the damage from block reorgs – unlucky Faketoshi!
BSV is continuing to suffer heavily and will continue to do as until Craig Wright either proves himself as Satoshi Nakamoto or admits he made the whole story up for some attention. No hacker with the skills and pockets deep enough would bother double spending BSV as it’s about as useful as the Venezuelan Bolivar right now.
