For those who haven’t noticed, the Feathercoin blockchain is mostly mined from two different wallet address. It means that this miner has more than 51% of the power but is it really a problem for the Blockchain?
The famous 51% Attack. Does is ring a bell?
First of all, “What is MINING”? Let come back to some basics. Cryptocurrency such as BITCOIN or FEATHERCOIN are created by the operation of mining. For Feathercoin today, every minute, 40 FTC are created as a reward to the system who resolve a complex mathematical equation. Overtime, it creates the circulating supply of the currency. The more systems are mining the same currency, the more the network security increase but the less chance you have to obtain the reward.
This process of resolving the equation and getting reward is call “MINING“.
The mined block must be validated by a majority of the global network power in order to add it to the blockchain.
“Do you mean that it is like the election?”
Yes it is, the majority “vote” for the respect of the rules (also called the consensus).
“But what happens when the power is no longer distributed well enough?”
In other word: “What happens if, for example, one single entity or organization is able to obtain more than 50% of the hashing power?”
The main consequence of that is what we call a 51% attack.
“And what are the effects of this attack?”
- The attacker can intentionally exclude or modify the ordering of transactions.
- The attacker could also reverse transactions they made while being in control – leading to a double-spending problem.
- The attacker could prevent some or all transactions from being confirmed.
“So in simple words: he creates a new blockchain where he gets full control of the rules.” Nevertheless, it cannot affect the past transactions or steal coin from existing wallets.
FEATHERCOIN was victim of a 51% attack in June 2013 and many blocks were affected by the attack.
Oh No!!!! Yes, it is true, however thanks to various protection mechanism and the strong community effort, the blockchain was recovered and a protection mechanism against 51% attack as been developed and implemented on FEATHERCOIN!
This mechanism is called “Advanced Check Pointing System” (ACP).
Sounds technical? Yes of course, if you are curious about the technical details click here but it is so important.
Since 2013, FEATHERCOIN has been attacked again but the ACP has played his role perfectly to protect the main blockchain and FEATHERCOIN was safe.
We are very proud of that.
“What about the other blockchains?”
Over the last years different blockchain (such as Vertcoin in December 2019) have been attacked and today many blockchains are still exposed to that attack.
You know what? Even BITCOIN is exposed to it!!!
Yes BITCOIN is exposed. I guess you understand once again WHY FEATHERCOIN is a GREAT alternative to BITCOIN with unique features and an international OPEN community.
Join us on this journey TODAY. Any participation is very welcome such as buying some FEATHERCOIN or bringing any of your great talents to our community.
The future of wealth is through the crypto World. The creation process has started already….
Your Friend, Feathercoin Writer.
