What can we learn from the recent 51% attack on Ethereum Classic?

With the recent news that Ethereum Classic suffered from a malicious 51% attack, there are lessons to be learnt if you are too emotionally attached to one of your favourite bags. The bear market hasn’t been kind to many people in the space, apart from perhaps the very good traders. This means that being careful about your investments is more of a priority than ever. Here are some tips to learn from the recent Ethereum Classic debacle.

Be wary of gurus

Barry Silbert tweeted in February 2018, “If you aren’t watching Ethereum Classic ($ETC) you’re doing it wrong”. Barry is a person with a lot of skin in the game within the world of cryptocurrencies. As the founder of the Digital Currency Group, one would expect him to be a wise voice in an often confusing world. You do have to dig a little deeper, however. Barry has a lot of fingers in different pies. One of them just so happens to be Ethereum Classic. When the fork happened, Barry was one of the main people to support the ETC version of Ethereum. Little wonder he would tweet such bullish sentiment like the above.

Check the hash rate

Crypto51 is an extremely useful website for users to view if they wish to see how susceptible their coin is to a 51% attack. The site provides information on how much an hour’s worth of attack would cost as well as how much hash power would be needed for an attack to occur. For bagholders of smaller altcoins, you might want to double check this website. Ethereum Classic was (and still is) a top 20 coin by market cap, so be careful out there!

Targets of attack

Perhaps bagholders need not fear so much, though. Generally, the targets of such attacks are the exchanges themselves. For this particular attack, it was Gate.io that suffered the most, not the individuals who hold the coin. This is common for many 51% attacks.

What is perhaps most interesting about the attack on Ethereum Classic though is how it has affected the price. Quite frankly, people do not seem to be that bothered by it, which seems very odd. The price has dropped a little, but nothing like the cliff one might expect to see when such an attack happens.