ETC 51% Attack and What It Means for Proof-of-Work and Crypto Exchanges | Haseeb Qureshi

In Special Episode of Hidden Forces , Demetri Kofinas speaks with Haseeb Qureshi of MetaStable Capital about the recent 51% attack against Ethereum Classic, its implications for exchanges that continue to list smaller market-cap cryptos like ETC, Dash, Monero, etc., and what it means for the debate between proof-of-work and proof-of-stake. On January 5th, 2019, the digital currency exchange Coinbase detected a deep chain reorganization of the Ethereum Classic blockchain. In order to protect customer funds, they immediately paused interactions with the ETC blockchain. Coinbase reported the 51% attack on January 7, 2019, but a few people on Twitter had already become aware that something wasn't right with ETC. Pierre Rochard, an emerging thought-leader in the Bitcoin space, asked ETC developer Donal McIntyre on Twitter: "Was there a deep reorg on Ethereum Classic yesterday?… 75 blocks deep I hear, with a double-spend." Donal McIntyre replied: "Well ETC is still small and has many enemies so an attack with sufficient GPU power may be plausible, but I will check with others in the ecosystem." Cryptocurrencies that are not dominant in their respective mining algorithm, especially ones f…