Thanos hard fork activated on the Ethereum Classic network

On Saturday, November 28, the Ethereum Classic network saw the planned Thanos hard fork. Its aim was to improve the security of this cryptocurrency following a series of recent 51% attacks.

The update was activated at block #11,700,000 at 19:48:41 UTC.

Congratulations to everybody who had a hand in the #ethereumclassic Thanos hardfork!

We are looking good:https://t.co/7lIxF4bznb pic.twitter.com/q7jmG5b5EU

— Bob Summerwill (@BobSummerwill) November 28, 2020

Earlier, developers reminded users to update client software to the latest versions.

As of publication, 27% of nodes had not updated, including 18% of nodes running the most popular Coregeth client. A number of listed clients, including Openethereum and Multigeth, are no longer supported by the network.

Source: etcnodes.

As reported ForkLog previously, the Thanos update (ECIP-1099) will double the Ethash (Etchash) epoch length from 30,000 to 60,000 blocks, effectively reducing the size of the directed acyclic graph (DAG). This will allow GPUs with 3GB and 4GB to resume mining Ethereum Classic.

In October, the Ethereum Classic Core and Ethereum Classic Labs teams implemented the Exponential Subjective Scoring (MESS) solution on the Mordor testnet. The new finalisation algorithm nearly 31 times increased the cost of block reorganisations, removing, it is claimed, the motive for 51% attacks.

However, IOHK representatives, the Cardano development company and a participant in the ETC Cooperative, expressed doubt that MESS would completely eliminate the possibility of new reorganisations in the Ethereum Classic blockchain.

Earlier, in August, the Ethereum Classic network was attacked three times by 51%. In the most recent attack, the depth of the reorganisation amounted to 7000 blocks, roughly equivalent to about two days of mining.

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