I actually would say yes, they got the money. I have readed it was a successfull attack and just because they informed the exchange doesn’t mean they reacted immediatly.
From their statement (Zencash’s) it seems maybe even more damage is done than these 19.000ZEN/550,000$.
“Additionally, at least two blocks contain double spend attacks. It is possible there are more incidents which have yet to be discovered. Both double spends combine for a total of 19,000 ZEN, worth close to $555,000 at current prices.”
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Answering point by point:
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The cost for 1 hour attack on Zencash with Nicehash traffic would be around USD 5,000-6,000, cheap as hell.
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Motivation behind? Money, if you think that some 550,000$ for a hacker isn’t motivation enough … Yes, i still believe it’s a hacker/group that makes money out of it. Just the most logical thing.
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I never said NiceHash is involved or that it’s actually the case. First of all i use nicehash as an example as it’s the most popular and use it for cost calculation. There are enough other cloudservices/miningrentals around that can provide enough hashpower as well of course. As i wrote allready in a post, even the hashpower directly immediatly available on miningrigrentals is enough to perform the attack. And i’am talking only about the immediatly available hashrate, when you plan it someone can’s collect way more hashrate.
Additionally i do not need any proof for it, as i say it’s the most logic and most easy way to perform an attack. I never said it was with nicehash hashpower.
Actually i counter only the argument that ONLY bitmain has the hashpower for a 51% attack, which is plain wrong and mostly used with intention. And of course to provide an alternative theory/option that is even the most simplest, most likely, most logic, hacking for money. Of course there is no interest of such plausible option in an anti-asic agenda, hence arguments like “only bitmain has that hashpower”…
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51% attacks happen all the time. On most we even don’t get aware because it’s not a big project and/or the devs hide the fact it happened not to risk their project. Even Verge is denying it gets attacked/timespoofed, even we see some algos are attacked nonstop and daily. It’s an asic friendly coin by the way!
But of course the reason could be as well that someone prepared these attacks long time ago and MUST react now bevor an eventually other coin, just speculation of course, i have no idea how long and what preperation such hacking attack for doublespend and money needs. -
Your argument is wrong saying all 3 coins said no to asics, at least my understanding for Zencash is that they did not yet 100% say they will fork, but similar to Zcash first investigating it to see what’s possible and if it makes sense. But hey, i could be wrong, not following them a lot.
The last weeks about 20 coins forked on cryptonite, i’am not aware of a single attack there on any coin that announced asic resistance!
Actually the BTG attack was the most smart in my opinion, very low hashrate on the coin, still high value coin, perfect for 51% attack to make money, not many other coins have that much value on a such low hashrate…
The biggest flaw in your comment is that you take only choosen attacks on coins, not all, neither all forking coins. You say that 3 coins that will asic-resistance fork are 51% attacked, that’s wrong. Because over the last weeks about 50 announced such thing, so it’s cleary NOT every coin that anncounces asic resistance that gets attacked…
The point you mention: “Is anyone even trying to get to the bottom of who is perpetrating these attacks? Is it the same person/group? Different Groups? Depending on where it originated…could this be considered a cyber crime in that country?”
These are really interesting questions that get my full support for several reasons:
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so far i haven’t seen yet a team that went to the bottom, the best efford i have seen so far in a hack was the NEM one. But than again, it was not a 51%. I really would like to have more information about such attacks and it’s investigation.
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i as well wonder why NEVER a rollback after a successfull attack is performed? Of course i’am well aware that a roll-back brings other problems with it, BUT the most important thing would be a clear message that a given coin can not be hacked for profit. Just a thing i wonder about as i have not seen a roll-back so far even on 51%/timespoof attacks where the attacker makes 10M+.
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As such attacks must be launched from a private/secret miningpool it would be interesting to know what kind of traces these leave and if it could be investigated further if done professionally.
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How many of the 51% coins have reported it to the authorities so indeed some official investigation and crime prosecution follows? No information. Each time i notice that no official investigation by the authorities is done it raises my suspection of an inside job, be it for counterfy the Coin, be it as an excuse for token coins by a given dev/team/group/ inside the project. I think by now we have witnessed enough such embezzlements and please don’t underestimate this factor, greed was, is and always will be a flaw in most humans. Sidenote: One of the reasons i’am absolutly happy about the Dev fee on Zcash, absolutly eleminates the reasons for inside jobs.
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I’am not aware of a 51% attacked coin that shares later it’s findings ( i can be wrong here of course as i’am not following all coins), shares exactly with what efford was done, from whom done, when done, what outcome, what exactly theft, on which exchange, and and and and. Something like a full detailed report so the community can after check as well, confirm or try it’s own investigation…
You are right about the Pandoras Box in my opinion. Where money is, there are hackers on the internet. We have soooo many cases now from hacked exchanges, nicehash, 51% attacks, timespoof attacks that the damage done so far must be multi billion dollars and it won’t stop here for sure.
And again, i’am far from saying that Bitmain couldn’t do such things, its just on place 3, as i see 2 more likely options for these 51% attacks that make more sense. I’am just more cautios when pointing a finger somewhere and considering other likely options as well, that’s it.
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Actually while you are right about the available hashpower it’s as well a question of cost. Hashpower is one factor, cost is the second and availability of hashpower the third important factor.
About the examples you made:
Bytecoin could be 51% attacked. It’s network hashrate at the moment is about ~416 Mh/s, at nicehash you could get immediatly, as you mentioned allready, ~470 MH/s, enough to provide a 51% attack, the cost would be around 1000 per hour. If i remember right, bevor the ETN fork, the attacking cost for Bytecoin was around 200 - 250. Don’t nail me on this number but that’s what i remember it was! Due the ETN for a lot of hashpower went to Bytecoin, decreasing it’s profitably about 4 times, but raising it’s network security as well 4x. No matter it’s still vulnerable, it’s more secure now as it was, fact! Just unbiased analyze by the way.
About MonetaryUnit, a coin a never consider worth following anyway. It’s network hashrate is 27.26 Th/s, Nicehash could provide immediatly 660 TH/s for rent, Cost would be around US$ 300 per hour. No doubt, it’s a coin for an easy attack.
Random pure GPU coin, Innova/INN, Neoscrypt, listed #2 on what to mine for NeoScrypt. Network Hashrate: 1.55 Gh/s, available on Nicehash: 18 GH/s, cost per hour 51% attack ~120 USD. Real Bargain.
I think your argument that asic coins are more vulnarable to rent hashrate is only partly true (see list below) as you consider only the availability of hashpower, not the cost, one of the 3 main factors. I agree that a shitload of minor coins, here not matter if asics/gpu with low networks are just vulnerable and maybe POW isn’t the best way for them to go anyway.
I took the time to make to list all coins that are mostly secure due having such big networks that renting 51% of the hashrate is not possible through nicehash. The lower the % the less someone can get the hashpower power needed:
Bitcoin - BTC - SHA256 - 2% - ASIC
Ethereum - ETH - Ethash - 3% - GPU soon GPU/ASIC
Myriad - XMY - Several - 4% - ASIC
Litecoin - LTC - Scrypt - 7% - ASIC
Dogecoin - DOGE - Scrypt - 10% - ASIC
BitcoinCash - BCH - SHA256 - 11% - ASIC
Unobtanium - UNO - SHA256 - 11% - ASIC
Zcash - ZEC - Equihash - 12% - GPU/ASIC
Monero - XMR - CryptV7 - 17% - GPU/Botnets
Sibcoin - SIB - X11Ghost - 17% - ASIC
Viacoin - VIA - Scrypt - 20% - ASIC
Pascalcoin - PASCAL - 45% - ASIC
Crown - CRW - SHA256 - 50% - ASIC
Dash - DASH - X11 - 51% - ASIC
Bitconnect - BCC - SHA256 - 65% - ASIC
LBRY Credits - LBRY - LBRY - 66% - ASIC
Ethereum Classic - 71% - GPU soon GPU/ASIC
Bulwark - BWK - NIST5 - 95% - ASIC
Monero Original - XMO - Cryptonite - 93% - ASIC
- All over only 19 coins are very secure from a 51% attack today
- By today only 2 coins (Ethereum and Ethereum Classic) could be considered safe pure GPU coins as the Asic impact should be minimal as of today.
- 16 of the safe coins have ASIC presence.
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reply to what???
Nobody ever said that nicehash is doing it, i said it CAN/COULD be easy rented from nicehash and redirected to a private miningpool. Neither the original miners nor niceash can follow and see what after the miningpool where the traffic get send happens… Your post is based on a total wrong assumption.
While you laugh about it, i personally find it tragic that coins can be 51% attacked for less than <100% which includes shitload of Asic and GPU coins anyway.
And while you laugh about asic security. Out of 19 secure Coins the whole majority of them is Asic, or in other words 90% of the real 51% attack secure coins/projects are ASIC. So much about gpu hashpower security 
there is a term called “mental feedback loop” , any one can look it up in google .
“asic pro” dudes are “Engaging in intellectually stimulating conversation with little or no practical purpose.” . that’s a plain description of whats going on here .
every single argument they gave has been debunked massively .
weather regarding security , centralization, loyalty …etc you name it .
so imo its becoming more of a dark comedy thread rather than a logical conversation 
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the day has come.
ok, lets just watch diffuculty and ZEC price at the market.
If the direction of movement will be: difficulty goes up (because of asics) AND the price goes down (asic owners fix their profits selling zec) - i will definetely sell all ZEC, mine with my 100+gpu other coin, and will never come back to this project.
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Very sad that i’ve spent last 6 months mining ZEC.
If i would know that dev team will fall into love with Bitmain i would never invest any time or energy into ZCASH. NEVER!
It’s just stupid waste of time trying to compete against ASICS using Graphic Cards…
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There is a term called “blinkers”.
From the dictionary:
“a pair of small leather screens attached to a horse’s bridle to prevent it seeing sideways and behind and being startled.”
This perfectly fits many anti-asics guys that deny whatever argument, proof, fact and rely truely only on rumours and the deny of whatever valid argument, hence preventing seeing sideways…
ASICs are available for you to purchase if you want to continue supporting and securing the Zcash network.
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asics are avaliable… yeah right.
i will pay bitmain NOW.
receive asic in september.
and we all know, that first batch they sell is small (to get very positive reviews from first asic owners on ytube and so on). After this goal achieved - you (or me) are no longer needed for Bitmain, so they start playing. By that i mean redefining mining field, by their resources - CASH, HASHPOWER.
You want to give them your money - it is your choice.
The problem is, ZCASH devs do not give any choice to community, NOT ONE! In fact they lay under Bitmain T-O-T-A-L-L-Y
well, good luck to you guys. sure bitmain trusts in ZCASH project and cares about it, sure! Pay them!
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You have to understand one more thing - Bitmain is afraid of possible asic resistance, this is the only reason WHY they sell first batch in such small quantity, and so transparent.
Does not this makes your brain work?
Why cant you see that Bitmain will do anything to ACHIEVE its GOAL. It will stay low, say anything on twitter, just to keep things rolling the way they predict.
You have to be so naive to think that making EVERYBODY ELSE rich is on their plan.
But, seems that dev team know all situation very well and that’s why they won’t do anything. Probably they got paid by China.
Community seems to fall into z9 miners… well again - good luck guys.
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letter “z” in z9 mini name makes me feel that zcash team worked from the beginning with bitmain.
and z9 seems to be designed especially for zcash.
bad news all around.
just sad for time and energy wasted on this project, because of trust.
sad that for year dev team supported in many ways idea of asic resistance, and when Bitmain released z9 - just no any reaction, not any. Just some weak comments… i mean no vote by community or something… this reaction absence pushed some people to buy from Bitmain. And those who bought, at this point, will stand for their decision. So moment of truth is wasted - and wasted by zcash team, no one other.
I mean - it is pretty obvious that zcash team pushes people to buy z9.
so different from zcash used to be.
sad.
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Here some interesting read aboout attacks on a network, in this case the mona coin on lyra:
Monacoin Blockchain Network Vulnerability Exploited By Selfish Mining Attack
Reading this i wonder if the current attacks are 51% attacks or Selfish Mining attacks, not that i see a big difference. But the vulnerability is present to about 99% of the projects in POW. Makes someone rethink if POW mining is really the best solution expect for a handfull of coins…
I’am drifting daily more and more to POS as the best solution eventually.
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to make POS you have to invest in data centers, where all huge amount of data will be processed. great money. and there comes centralization, and other problems.
It was related to security of projects as literally every project currently using POW can be 51%/selfish mining attacked…
No idea where you get that huge datacenters for POS as for example i’am staking some coins on my PC, works great by the way.
And where is the deal if about 1000 projects/coin on minor networks could be 51% attacked all the time for just as much as 10 USD/hours to have them POW?
Tell me where are they available??
Only place on planet earth they are sold says this “Antminer Z9 mini
Shipping: August 24th- Sep.4th”
So including time to come to me from China,import customs its oktober latest…and now is 6 JUN…so if i pay now i will receive in 4 MONTHS.
And we all know that there is better version with 3-4 times hashrate.
I can buy any GPU right now in local store…when i go out from house i can back with GPU in 10 minutes and for ASIC need to pay now and wait 4 months…while Bitmain can mine instantly.
Your posts just hurt my brain.
When i remember how much time and energy (and also money) i spent lobbying everywhere for Zcash to be ascept on my favorite exchange Cex i now feel like total idiot.
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You can purchase them from Bitmain or buy them on Ebay from those who took more initial risk. At one point you could buy the first batch.
I disagree with miners who believe that mining should always be guaranteed to be profitable or that risk should not be involved. The entire mining process is about greed: seeking profits. That means everyone will want to get involved, but when they do, the difficulty goes up and only a few with lower operational costs will still be profitable. When the others drop out, the difficulty goes down and more miners can take risks to see if they will be profitable again.
I’d like to point out that the GPU craze during winter saw GPU prices skyrocket. Only to have earning per card cut.
Going by WTM you would have been making $10 per 1080ti now you’re looking at $1.75. Though you can make deals on other non listed coins and get $3-4 per 1080 ti. This is at $0.10 kWh.
Yes you can buy a GPU right now, but should you is the better question. You could gamble get some that are preowned. Or, you could gamble and wait for the 1180s, but who knows when thats going to be. Betting money is saying October for the new 1180, and even then we won’t know what performance it will have.
FGPA look great and I can code, awesome, sign me up. Oh wait, FGPA for $4000 now for $6000. Why?, Just because.
The point is getting into mining is a risky endeavor whether you are GPU FPGA CPU HDD ASIC. Do research and be safe.