Communications of the ACM
Ethereum Weathers Bug That Underlines Possible Blockchain Risks
Outdated software last week caused the fork in the digital ledger, which is popular for blockchain-based financial services and transactions in online collectibles. Users minimized the damage by rapidly updating a key program and the deviant fork should w
Credit: Akos Stiller/Bloomberg
Ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin said the blockchain survived a flaw from outdated software that divided the digital ledger last week, thanks to a quick program update by users.
Lubin said, "This chain fork opened up a single minor vulnerability: a greater likelihood of perpetrating a double-spend and getting the money out of the system before it is corrected naturally by the protocol."
The incident is the latest reminder of potential cryptocurrency weaknesses, and crypto news source The Block suggested over half of Ethereum nodes may have been running with the bug at one point.
Said Konstantin Richter at independent blockchain infrastructure platform Blockdaemon, "This just underlines how all major public blockchains are non-linear, meaning they are run by an open source community that needs to be majority-aligned in principle and technically to ensure seamless chain performance. Since there isn't a central entity, these things happen and are the price of decentralization."
From Bloomberg
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