- BSV is in crisis following a reorg attack that has seen exchanges halt their services
- BSV has an extremely low hashrate and node count, making it vulnerable to attack
- It also has one miner, TAAL, in charge of over 60% of the hashrate
BSV, the coin touted as being the true vision of Bitcoin and which last month rebranded to BS…B…BSV Enterprise Utility Blockchain or However You Want to Phrase The Words, is circling the drain after exchanges and liquidity providers halted their support of it. A recent block reorganization has increased the threat of a 51% attack and left the chain unstable, leading to the remaining exchanges that host BSV halting deposits and withdrawals and liquidity providers withdrawing their services.
BSV Low Hashrate Leaves it Vulnerable
The BSV-supporting Bitcoin Association, which claimed earlier this year, despite its name, that BSV had never claimed to be the real Bitcoin, announced news of the reorganization attack on July 8. A double spend attack was labelled as the cause of the disruption, which is where malicious actors temporarily gain control of a blockchain and issue double the coins to themselves. These kinds of attacks can happen on proof-of-work blockchains that have a very low hashrate or who have a majority miner controlling it.
Unfortunately for BSV, both of these attack points exist. It’s hashrate stands at 457 PH/s, over 2.5x less than the coin it forked from in 2019, Bitcoin Cash, and 219x less than Bitcoin. This makes it relatively cheap for a third-party to attack:
Source: Crypto51
BSV’s hashrate is also heavily controlled by one miner, TAAL, which has been the case since BSV mouthpiece Coingeek abandoned the coin last year:
Source: Blockchair
Exchanges Halt Operations
BSV suffered two 51% attacks in 2019 and things clearly haven’t improved. As a result of the most recent one some of the few exchanges that still host BSV halted withdrawals and deposits in an attempt to stop the bad actors from selling their ill-gotten gains. The situation escalated yesterday when Gravity announced they were halting BSV trading after their BSV liquidity provider fell foul of the lack of liquidity in the market. This left some BSV cult members worried about their holdings:
@CalvinAyre im scared what is going on!
— Carl Marks (@Yargunnersyar) July 13, 2021
Given that BSV sugar daddy Calvin Ayre has claimed many times that BSV has “already won” and that it’s aim is to go after big businesses and governments, he might want to spend a bit more cash securing the network before approaching world leaders. Just a thought.
