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Review on Ethereum Classic by Mr Benji
Forks, forks everywhere
- Attack on DAO, which led to the creation of Ethereum Classic
As we have already stated in the previous section, the DAO system contained a weakness in the code, and the hackers did not delay for a long time and took advantage of this weakness. The blockchain itself, on which the DAO concept was built, is not guilty of code vulnerability. It belongs only to the DAO itself, while ethereum as such represents only the background, respectively space for its realization.
In mid-June of the same year, after roughly one month of satisfied existence, hackers managed to exploit code weaknesses and drain a third of the total DAO fund, about $ 50 million (3.7 million tokens).
Hackers made the following:
They used the split function to give the system back ethers for their embedded DAO coins.
Before the system managed to enter the blockchain transaction and update the balance status (which would normally be the second automatically performed step), hackers with the desired recursive function came. This feature allows returning codes (.. and thus ethers) for embedded DAO before updating the balance on user accounts.
The attack ended with hackers taking over 50 million ethers and moving their funds to child DAO. However, one thing they missed was the opportunity to spend the money drained immediately. As we know, ethers can only be realized after 28 days. This means that their funds have been blocked for almost a month.
- The fight is not over
It is not difficult to guess what was the reason for the radical solution: It was a necessity to pay the stolen money by introducing a smart contract whose only function was to allow the victims to collect one ether for each DAO invested.
This step, however, did not go without dividing the whole system, which interfered with the very essence of blockchain etherea. Many people did not like this move, as ethereum had originally promised a fair and transparent system that would not change and remain forever. The system was designed to show absolute resistance to any human intervention, which was the decisive argument of the proponents of the original Ethereum Classic system. Pointing to the precedent nature of this step, they stressed that if a similar solution is adopted once, other similar ones may follow, thereby embarrassing the very idea behind the birth of etherea.
In this context, it is worth mentioning that another hard fork solution known as Byzantium is expected at the end of October 2017 to remove the impact of malevolent elements on the network. Byzantium is the first similarly radical step in the ethereal cryptocurrency project since the rather extensive Metropolis event. The testing phase is currently underway, with official changes coming soon.
As far as the division of the community is concerned, it turned out that ideological arguments are so strong that they did not prevent persuading opponents of a radical solution to the benefits of this move. Nor was it enough that the so-called radicals included the founders of etherea, Vitalik Buterin and Gavin Wood, and many other major players in the industry.
Unfortunately, users who stayed with the original Ethereum Classic do not have access to updated versions, such as the change from the original Proof Of Work (PoW) to the new Proof of Stake (PoS).
Updated 5 years ago
Rating has not been changed
Ethereum Classic Labs partners with Metronome to enable, for the first time, cross-blockchain “chainhop” interoperability:
- Thanks to this partnership they can transfer back and forward digital assets between two big blockchains Ethereum and Ethereum Classic. This will provide greater cross-chain interoperability and helps Metronome to provide self-governance.
Pros
- Preserving a convincing argument about blockchain invariability.
- Interest of many influential members of the etherea user community
- Mining in the case of ETC is available to individual users - unlike bitcoin.
- From PoW to PoS
Cons
- Inability to access the updated version of etherea
- The transition of the founders and the biggest players of etherea to the new version of ETH
- Use of ETC by various questionable resp. fraudulent brokers
- perceiving the Etherea Classic as a certain reprisal or attack on ETH community members
