Ethereum Classic developers report network outage

A disruption occurred in the Ethereum Classic network, the exact nature of which is not yet established. Developers confirmed that they are studying the causes and recommended exchanges, mining pools and other users to temporarily refrain from conducting transactions.

PSA: During this ongoing network maintenance we kindly ask service providers i.e. exchanges, mining pools, and others to temporarily halt $ETC deposits as we further investigate the issues behind the current state of the network.

We will be post all new updates here.Thanks! pic.twitter.com/hyc1HEpxNQ

— Ethereum Classic (@eth_classic) August 1, 2020

Earlier, Ethereum Foundation lead developer Hudson Jameson wrote about a ‘problem in the ETC blockchain’.

There is a problem on the Ethereum Classic (ETC) blockchain. Exchanges need to pause deposits and withdrawals.

— Hudson Jameson (@hudsonjameson) August 1, 2020

He was unable to say what exactly the problem consisted of, noting that he was receiving information from miners who ended up in the erroneous chain.

Representatives said that at block 10904146 the Ethereum Classic blockchain underwent a reorganisation of 3,693 blocks. They suggested the cause might be a 51% attack.

Today the #ETC chain experienced a chain reorg of 3693 blocks at block 10904146. This caused all state pruned nodes to stop syncing. It is likely caused by a 51% attack and all exchanges are advised to halt deposits & withdrawals immediately and investigate all recent tx. pic.twitter.com/lUNtifaBWT

— Bitfly (@etherchain_org) August 1, 2020

Lead ETC Core developer James Wu has not yet confirmed this information, urging ‘no worries’. According to him, developers are working on a fix, and it will be resolved.

Hi everybody, @etc_core is working on it now, please kindly wait for the response from the core team. No worries, it will be solved. Exchanges need to pause deposits and withdrawals now. https://t.co/5CrrLNDHax

— James Wo (@realjameswo) August 1, 2020

In July, the decision to discontinue further support for the ETC client and focus on other projects was taken by the OpenEthereum team, which accounted for about 50% of all nodes in the Ethereum Classic network. In the GitHub vote, among other things, concerns about the immutability of the ETC blockchain were voiced. Earlier, a similar decision was made by the Multi-Geth developers.

Update: ETC developers confirmed the split of the network into two chains at block 10904146, resulting in its unstable state. The miner-violator mined around 3,000 blocks, but developers see no clear signs of a deliberate attack.

Miners were advised to continue operating, following the longest chain. The network’s condition, according to the developers, is normalising. The investigation into the incident continues.

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