Litecoin Creator Charlie Lee: ‘By Definition, a Decentralized Cryptocurrency Must Be Prone to 51% Attacks’

In the wake of recent reports about unusual mining activity on the Ethereum Classic (ETC) network — which many continue to refer to as a 51% attack — Lee shared his

Litecoin (LTC) creator Charlie Lee took to Twitter on Jan. 7 to level out that any decentralized cryptocurrency is inherently weak to 51% attacks.

His remark got here amid latest studies of anomalous mining exercise on the Ethereum Traditional (ETC) community, which البعض continue to refer to as a 51% attack. Lee’s statement reads:

“By definition, a decentralized cryptocurrency must be vulnerable to 51% attacks whether by hashrate, stake, and/or other permissionlessly-acquirable units. If a crypto cannot be 51% attacked, it’s permissioned and centralized.”

Lee’s remark was in response to a separate tweet by Twitter user CryptoTesla, which stated “if it can’t be 51% attacked, it isn't decentralized,” in response to Coinbase’s announcement that it had detected “chain reorganizations” and double spends on ETC’s blockchain on Jan. 7.

As of Jan. 8, Coinbase has up to date the figures to indicate that there have been 12 further reorganizations involving double spends, totaling 219,500 ETC (around $1.1 million).

Coinbase had announced that it will be suspending deposits and withdrawals of ETC on Jan. 5, with the freeze still in place at press time.

On Jan. 7, ETC developers refuted reports that the hashpower consolidation was in fact a 51% attack, stating that it was “most likely selfish mining” and that no double spends had occurred.

Later on, the ETC team claimed in a tweet that the increased hashrate could be due to application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) producer Linzhi testing its new 1,400/Mh Ethash machines. However, Linzhi Shenzhen’s director of operations denied these claims in a since-deleted tweet.

The ETC team has notably refrained from using the term “51% attack” to describe the incident at press time. One of their latest tweets on the matter as of today reiterates a request for all crypto exchanges and mining pools to notably increase confirmation time on all withdrawals and deposits.