The team immediately took steps to mitigate the consequences. Customer funds are not affected, but the attacker managed to launch two large double spend transactions. The team urged all exchanges where ZEN is quoted to increase the number of confirmations to 100 to prevent the end of the attack.
https://twitter.com/zencashofficial/status/1003275809149288450
- zencashofficial
However, the attacker managed to intervene in the operation of 38 units and run two double spends in the amount of 6,600 and 13,000 ZEN. The price of the network attack on ZenCash did not exceed $ 7000 per hour. ZEN is not the cheapest coin, it has a rather high status and a relatively low level of hashing.
The market price of ZEN fell by 4.78%, but in general, the coin kept its position. During the preparation of the post, her course was $ 27.7. The volume of trading ZEN is still quite low, with more than 64% of this volume accounted for by Binance. However, small exchanges are more vulnerable to such attacks. Currently, Binance holds a trade competition for ZEN with a reward of 10,000 coins.
Theoretically, an attack of 51% significantly undermines the credibility of the network. One of the first and largest attacks of this kind was committed against Bitcoin Gold (BTG), and now such incidents occur more often.
Some observers say that the current threat of 51% attacks can destroy almost all small coins, which until now offered a noticeable reward for mining. The introduction of the Proof-of-Stake algorithm and changes in the structure of nodes in the future should reduce the likelihood of such interventions. Another solution against attacks of 51% may be forks, which make ASIC-miners useless.
Until now, the ZenCash project has not taken any steps in connection with the introduction of ASIC-mining, without changing the algorithm and simply waiting for the connection to the network of new computing capacities. In the ZenCash network, Antminer Z9 Equihash miners of Bitmain company can be used, which, apparently, are already delivered to their lucky owners.
At the same time, Bitmain denies its involvement in the 51% attack on Bitcoin Gold, although the buyers of miners often express suspicion that they were sold the devices that were in use.
