Bitcoin SV Suffers a 51% Attack; Hackers reorganise up to 14 blocks

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Written on Aug 4, 2021

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Per Coin Metric’s Lucas Nuzzi, the attackers had also tried hacking Bitcoin SV on Monday.
Nuzzi claims that the attackers took over the network for more than three hours yesterday.
The Bitcoin Association responded by asking node operators to nullify the fraudulent chain.

Bitcoin SV (BSV/USD), the 42^nd-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, has suffered a 51% attack. The attack started at 3:45 PM yesterday. Reportedly, this hack resulted in the simultaneous mining of up to three versions of the chain.

According to the report, Coin Metrics, a renowned provider of on-chain and off-chain crypto market data, confirmed this news via a tweet, saying its FARUM risk management platform identified the hack first.

FARUM has identified a 51% attack today on the BSV network at around 11:45AM EDT.https://t.co/Oy19UDw53t https://t.co/T3MMRHqPe8
— CoinMetrics.io (@coinmetrics) August 3, 2021

Lucas Nuzzi, Coin Metric’s Network Data Product Manager, also substantiated this news, noting that someone is trying to destroy BSV. He pointed out that the attackers had attempted to hack the Bitcoin SV network on the previous day. While the initial attempt was not successful, the hackers managed to breach the network yesterday. Nuzzi further disclosed that there was a release of a significant amount of hashing power after the attackers took over the network.

According to him, the hackers reorganised more than 12 blocks. On top of this, the hackers were mining up to three versions of the Bitcoin SV chain simultaneously on several mining pools. Nuzzi further shared that the attackers held the network for more than three hours yesterday. As such, he believes that all crypto exchanges that received BSV during that period might have been double-spent.

The Attack Might Still Be On

Reportedly, FARUM nodes recorded the deep reorganisation of 14 blocks. At the time of writing, the nodes have not recorded any more reorganisation attempts. However, there are synchronization conflicts among leading mining pools. With this in mind, it remains unknown whether the attack has ended.

Trying to counter the attack, Bitcoin Association, the team behind Bitcoin SV, advised node operators to invalidate the fraudulent chain. In so doing, the group believes node operators will be able to return their nodes to the original chain, which is supported by honest miners. This move would also lock the attacker’s chain out.

In response to the ongoing re-organisation attack on the #BSV network, Bitcoin Association recommends that node operators mark the fraudulent chain as invalid.

This will immediately return your node to the chain supported by honest miners and lock the attacker’s chain out.

1/2
— BSV Association (@BSV_Assn) August 3, 2021

To nullify the fake chain, Bitcoin Association recommends that Bitcoin SV node operators should run the following command.

bitcoin-cli invalidateblock 000000000000000003B67AEC95E9B5DA897EB5EBF3227D5A6A67835104367840

Meanwhile, BSV/USD is bleeding after losing 5.09% over the past 24 hours to trade at $135.07 (£96.97). This price denotes a 72.53% drop from the coin’s all-time high of $491.64 (£352.96).