In the past nine months, news.Bitcoin.com has reported on the BTG project’s involvement in the power attack. Since the start of the project announcement, the fork agreement has been in question and dispute, which make it delisted by the exchange Bittrex. Bitretrex, a Seattle-based exchange, said it lost more than 12,000 BTGs in 51% of the network’s attacks, and the company has asked the BTG team to compensate them for the damages that were cybersecurity compensation.
1. BTG has a lot of troubles and is questioned
According to news.Bitcoin.com, the Bitcoin gold is the BTC branch, which attempts to become “ASIC resistant” by using a consensus algorithm called Equihash. Unfortunately, the project has been constantly made problems and posting controversial announcements for the team, such as the development team chose to pre-mined before the release.
In addition, a third-party wallet allegedly stole people’s private keys. Of course, since the BTG began trading, the market performance of this cryptocurrency has been always terrible. In May of this year, it was discovered that Bitcoin Gold could not resist ASIC attacks. The founder of Bitcoin Gold, Liao Xiang, had a positive conflict with Wu Jihan, who is the founder of Bitmain and a supporter of BCH value.
Because BTG suffered a 51% computing power attack at the time, which is a kind of attack means that when someone has mastered the BTG’s 51% computing power, it can use these calculations to recalculate the blocks that have already been confirmed. And make the blockchain fork and gain profit behavior.
Wu Jihan posted a news on the social network, saying that he was told that Liao Xiang was spending money to ask the reporter to report that he and Bitmain(which forked bitcoin currency to bitcoin cash) launched the attack. But Wu questioned that Liao Xiang himself might have launched a 51% attack on BTG, because Liao Xiang can profit more form that.
Wu Jihan said that BTG is “(Shitcoin)”. Liao Xiang replied that there is only Equihash ASIC mining machine in Bitmain. It is most capable of attacking all chains that use Equihash algorithm and said that “only Wu Jihan will make this shaming matter.”
2. Bittrex delisted BTG due to 51% of computing power attack
The BTG team resolutely decided to fork the Bitcoin so that it could change the consensus algorithm to resist ASIC mining. And the agreement had changed, but the exchanges lost a lot of money due to 51% computing power attack.
After the hacking incident, many exchanges including Bitinka, Bitfinex, Bittrex, Bithumb, Hitbtc and Binance exchange lost much money. The total damage caused by the hacking attack was about 388,000 bitcoin currencywhich equivalent to 18 million dollars.
Bittrex lost approximately 12,400 BTG. And they requested BTG team to compensate the exchange for losses.
The BTG team explained, “There is neither the ability nor the responsibility to pay for the cybersecurity compensation (about 6000 BTG) required by Bittrex, although it is willing to provide Bittrex with a BTG loan to help resolve the “short-term liquidity problem” but it was rejected by Bittrex.
The delisting has little impact on BTG price, because the Bittrex is not the exchange with the strongest liquidity and maximum volume of BTG transactions, and the BTG team is not worried about the consequences of delisting.”
3. Claiming “ASIC Resistance” can really resist hacking?
According to BTG developers, they do not accept the quotation of 6000 BTG, and the withdrawal of Bittrex has no significant impact on BTG. Instead, the BTG team explained how they did their best to help Bittrex and other trading platforms when an attack occurred.
BTG developers detail the “every reasonable step” they take to try to help ensure Bittrex’s security against this threat. In addition, the BTG organization said that other Bitcoin Gold Exchanges will be certain that they will be helpful in the future.
Since cryptocurrencies have little security for hash power support, exchanges face significant risks by placing certain digital assets on the shelves, so BTG is not the only cryptocurrency that suffers from a 51% computing power attack. However, the BTG team initially claimed that the network would be “ASIC resistance” and it seems that they have not fulfilled this commitment.