Ethereum Classic will begin implementing immediate and future solutions to stabilize the hash rate and ensure its security, preventing further 51% attacks from harming the network.
The developer team of Ethereum Classic, the chain that separated from Ethereum In 2016, it announced a series of security solutions that will begin to be implemented immediately to prevent new 51% attacks to the network, as unfortunately happened recently.
Denominated "ETC Network Security Plan”, the document presented sets out a series of measures that the team will begin to implement immediately, such as constant cooperation of reliable miners To maintain a stable hash rate, the continuous network monitoring to identify any fault or anomaly, coordination with the exchanges To use whitelisting addresses y secure confirmation times for transactions, in addition to a arbitration system called Permapoint that prevents block reorganizations and maintains the consensus of nodes on the network. The latter is a system developed by the ETC Core Team.
Although these security implementations are a great step that demonstrates the commitment of the Ethereum Classic developers to maintain and guarantee the stability of the network and its users, the real plan to prevent new possible 51% attacks is in the solutions that are presented in the future, among which the migration of ETC to a new consensus protocol and the integration of new functions such as checkpoints o PirlGuardLet's see what they are about.
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The longer the time, the better and more far-reaching solutions
The long-term security solutions, which will take between 3 to 6 months to implement, consider the change in the mining algorithm that Ethereum Classic currently uses, the Ethash. In this sense, the development team and the ETC community are deciding whether this migration will be made towards Keccak-256 o RandomX, which are the two alternatives currently under discussion. To implement this change, the team says they will carry out a series of tests, and if successful, they will migrate the network in approximately 6 months.
“If the community decides in favor of a mining algorithm change, we can begin working towards one of the following two options: switching to a GPU- and ASIC-friendly mining algorithm like Keccak256; or a CPU-friendly and ASIC-resistant algorithm like the RandomX developed by the Monero community.”
Although the community has not yet decided which algorithm to implement, ETC claims that using Keccak-256 will make it a potential leader with its own mining algorithm. Keccak-256 will allow Ethereum Classic to emerge from the “shadow of the Ethereum network.”
Likewise, ETC points out that to increase its resistance to possible 51% attacks, the integration of new features and functions such as checkpoints o PirlGuard are essential. These features, as well as the change in the mining algorithm, can be implemented in ETC through a hard fork, although these features would take an estimated time of 3 months.
What is Keccak-256, RandomX, Check-point and PirlGuard?
Keccak-256 is an algorithm based on the SHA-3 hash function. It is an extremely flexible mining algorithm with strong resistance to practical collision-finding attacks. Its elaborate and novel design is based on a random function that allows it to act as a kind of sponge that inputs and outputs any amount of data. This algorithm is mainly used in Ethereum network implementations and is compatible with GPU and ASIC mining.
For its part, RandomX It is a CPU mining algorithm that is based on Proof of Work (PoW) designed to ensure high security and decentralization in Monero, the cryptocurrency of privacy. It is a highly secure and reliable algorithm that is resistant to ASIC mining and is focused on maintaining reliability in private and anonymous systems. To meet these characteristics, RandomX uses complicated calculations and a random work area, making it highly resistant to 51% attacks by ASIC devices and GPUs.
Now, checkpoints is a mechanism that seeks to establish and guarantee the existence of a common control point when identifying and recognizing a blockchain. The integration of these features into ETC will help to considerably mitigate the risks of block reorganization, keeping the blockchain safe and stable. For its part, PirlGuard PirlGuard is an innovative solution against 51% attacks. This feature mandates that the protocol cannot automatically synchronize with any offline pre-mined chain branch, but must instead request peers to propose the longest and heaviest chain to mine a set of penalty blocks. With this action, PirlGuard has the potential to ensure the security of ETC and make future attacks on the network highly costly.
Finally, ETC notes that implementation of the new network security solutions will begin in September.
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