Occurring Thursday, according to tweets from the bitcoin gold team, two deep blockchain reorganizations (or reorgs) resulted in double spends of 1,900 BTG and 5,267 BTG, respectively. The losses amount to around $87,500 at current prices.
Bitcoin gold, a cryptocurrency that forked from bitcoin in 2017, has again been hit by 51 percent attacks.
«We do not know if they successfully extracted any value from an exchange. Advanced risk control systems in exchanges make it likely one or both attacks failed,» they wrote.
«Evidence» suggests the attacks used mining power obtained through mining power marketplace NiceHash, according to the team.
A 51 percent attack is conducted by actors who are able mine a blockchain network with more than half its hashing power, hence the name. This enables transactions to be rewritten, potentially diverting previously spent funds to a different address, as was the case here.
Writing on GitHub over the weekend, James Lovejoy, lead maintainer of the vertcoin cryptocurrency and a researcher at MIT’s Digital Currency Initiative, said the attacker mined blocks with an address that can be seen here.
In another tweet, the bitcoin gold team said: «We are in contact with exchanges to offer security help and got positive feedback from them. The targeted exchange(s) have already taken effective measures.»
While the exchanges were not named, Lovejoy said Binance has increased its withdrawal requirement for BTG to 20 confirmations from 12 since the attack.
Based on NiceHash data, the estimate cost to the attacker of each reorg was roughly 0.2 bitcoin (around $1,700), he added – around the amount that would have been given out in block rewards. As such, even if exchanges manage to block the double-spent coins, the attack would have broken even.
The is not the first time bitcoin gold has seen such an attack. In May 2018 around $18 million in the cryptocurrency was reportedly double spent.
Interestingly, bitcoin gold’s value has risen since news of the attack broke. At the time of writing, the price of BTG is around $12.20 – up 18.70 percent over 24 hours.
Bitcoin is Your Biggest Chance of Winning Money on the Super Bowl
The biggest Bitcoin Sportsbook and Casino, Stake.com, has decided to offer odds for the Superbowl with no margin on the Winner market. The company’s effort to promote their new betting site among Cryptocurrency users results in the best odds a punter can find, guaranteed.
That’s not it, on top of having ZERO margin in the NFL final, all pre-live bets on the Winner market in the Super Bowl will be paid out as a winner if either team gets 15 points in front.
The 54th Super Bowl will take place in Miami, Florida between Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers.
The experts at Stake.com are expecting a close match between both teams with a slight advantage in Kansas City Chiefs favour.
Bitcoin Risk-Return a ‘Different Beast’ Compared to Amazon: Analyst
Bitcoin’s (BTC) risk-return is a “different beast” compared to even the darling of the stock market of the 2000s, Amazon.
That was the conclusion drawn by one of the cryptocurrency industry’s best-known analysts and the creator of a uniquely accurate Bitcoin price model.
PlanB: Amazon “normal” compared to BTC
Uploading a chart showing BTC risk-return versus Amazon stocks, U.S. bonds, gold and the SP 500 on Jan. 24, PlanB showed Bitcoin behaved completely differently as an investment.
Amazon’s significant losses in the year 2000, combined with its revered recovery ever since still keeps it far below Bitcoin’s risk-reward ratio.
“Bitcoin… is a different beast!” PlanB summarized, describing Amazon’s position on the chart as “much closer to normal.”
Amazon’s share price appeared to shake off revelations involving Saudi Arabia allegedly hacking CEO Jeff Bezos this week. Both $AMZN and BTC nonetheless fell over the past seven days, with the latter potentially reacting to uncertainty stemming from China.
A volatile winning bet
The impressive contrast comes days after Cointelegraph reported on Bitcoin’s risk-adjusted returns outperforming every major investment offering based on a four-year investment.
Then, PlanB appeared to hint that four-year periods – the time between each reduction in the new Bitcoin supply – could continue to boost performance.
Further, cryptographer Nick Szabo added, the susceptibility of traditional instruments to react to government and central bank meddling in currency markets meant Bitcoin was a natural fit for long-term, or low-time preference, investors.
PlanB’s price model, stock-to-flow, has correctly called much of Bitcoin’s historical behavior and continues to forecast a level of $100,000 for BTC/USD in 2021.
At current levels, markets continue to conform to stock-to-flow, at $8,300 trading just below its suggested range. Before the next halving in May, $8,300 is, in fact, the average price the model says Bitcoin will trade at before moving significantly higher.
