Waltonchain suffered a “coordinated attack” Saturday that caused them to perform a hasty hard fork, a move to secure the network after a hacker managed to gain almost 99% of the mining hashrate. This coincided with a social media attack where “disinformation and malicious rumors” were apparently spread, with the team coming in for criticism in their handling of the problem.
Waltonchain team has performed a Mainnet upgrade at block No. 175,366 on June 29, 2019.
We inform miners to download the updated source code and use the new full-node wallet to continue mining. https://t.co/tnzZBhHAOr#Waltonchain $WTC #blockchain pic.twitter.com/1cMdIEX4jj
— Waltonchain (@Waltonchain) June 29, 2019
99% Attack
The attacker took advantage of an exploit within the Waltonchain code, allowing them to be a 99% majority miner and mine a large number of blocks concurrently from blockheight 175,368. Amazingly, the exploit was actually uncovered some days prior by members of the community and developers but a fix was not implemented in time, allowing the attack to proceed and causing the problem and requiring a hard fork to rectify the problem.
Alongside the delay in fixing the patch, there must also be a concern that a 99% attack was possible in the first place. 51% attacks are well known, but a 99% attack is unheard of and more than a little worrying for supporters of the project. The mainnet itself has been massively delayed, and indeed the purpose of the attack is unknown, as there was nothing to be gained from it, prompting suggestions it was just someone doing it because it could be done.
Negative Reaction From Supporters
It’s fair to say that members of the Waltonchain community were by and large unhappy with the turn of the events. While some supported the team in their actions, many were scathing in their assessment, with accusations that the team was “failing on every front” and suggesting that they “play in the amateur league” of cryptocurrency. Hopefully, for their sake the project can learn from this and improve the speed of their operations.
