Ethereum Classic: increase in transaction fees is a mystery

the After Ethereum Classic (ETC) became last week the victim of a 51% attack, now new oddities in the network, the round. The speech is an unusual increase in the fees for ETC transactions.

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15. January 2019BTC$3.612,24 -1.43%Facebook Twitter LinkedIn xing mail

On Sunday, the 13th. January, increase of the average fees in ETC-network – caution, buckle up to 800 percent. A former value from a few Cents were offset by fees of up to seven dollars. The ETC community is puzzled now about the background of the event.

the Hash Rate is rising simultaneously, with a fee

at The present time, you may speculate only. The increase in fees is associated, however, with a visible Peak of the ECT Hash Rate. This rose on Sunday, so on the same day, the increase of the transaction was to observe fees, of 8 TH/s on 12 TH/s. The rash can be well illustrated by the following graphic, observe:

Ethereum Classic (ETC) network Hash Rate TH/s.

What could be for this sudden increase?

2Miners responsible?

On the guest rascal.io jumps to one of the Mining Pool 2Miners in the eye. After this einspeiste since the beginning of the year, rarely more than 400 GH/s to the network, increased the Hash Rate on Sunday on a whopping up to 3054 GH/s – a Verneunfachung compared to the previous day:

the Hash Rate of the Mining Pools 2Miners in the course of the last 14 days. Data in GH/s.

As a possible reason for the strange increase in the Fees various theories are in the room.

GasToken Exploit as a possible explanation for this

First of all, Coindesk discussed the exploitation of a security vulnerability in the network, through clever transactions on Exchange Wallets, crypto-exchanges the Gas-price to pay. Thus, in theory, attackers can create, in principle, free GasToken and so enrich.

Read also: Healthy through the bear market: the dominance of the major Bitcoin Mining Pools decreases

Bitfly CEO Peter Pratscher keeps this explanation, however implausible. He said to Coindesk, could be the increase in transaction fees also a safety measure against a further 51% attacks. Because the higher the fees, the higher the incentives, ETC Mining to enter. And the more miners in the network are, the more difficult to 51% attacks.

"I do not believe that the high transaction contexts fees with the GasToken Exploit... It is unknown whether this was a mistake or a deliberate measure to promote the ETC-Mining-Pool, and to prevent a further 51% attacks."

Someone must have paid the high transaction fees but. Whether it was a good Samaritan, or a malevolent Hacker, is currently not clear.