Vitalik Buterin Dismisses 51% Attack Concerns on ETH 2.0

Ethereum’s Co-founder Vitalik Buterin dismisses the 51% attack concerns for his ETH 2.0 network upgrade which sees it shift to a proof of stake consensus design so let’s find out more in today’s Ethereum latest news.

After the yield farming aggregator Yearn Finance launched YFI vault earlier this week, the protocol attracted more than 137,000 ETH on the first day. The vault pays out yields to those that are locking their holdings on the platform from the returns that were generated by the interest gained on what is locked up in ETH on different platforms. Eric Wall, the chief intelligence officer of Arcane Assets, raised many concerns around the huge amount locked up. He said that the yETH vaults can control and even launch an unprecedented 51% attack on the Ethereum network because of its magnitude. Wall said:

 “We come up with fun ways yETH vault strategists can take advantage of the fact that yETH is probably going to control more than enough stake to 67%-attack ETH 2.0 PoS.”

ITT: We come up with fun ways yETH vault strategists can take advantage of the fact that yETH is probably going to control more than enough stake to 67%-attack ETH 2.0 PoS

— Eric Wall (@ercwl) September 2, 2020

Buterin said that the risks related with 51% attacks are targeting the upcoming upgrade but they were unfounded and stated that malicious actors could attack once but they can lose control fast, because of the actions of other participants:

 “In proof of work, on the other hand, a successful attacker can just attack over and over again, with no possible way to delete their hardware without deleting everyone else’s hardware. This is an underrated key fundamental advantage of PoS over PoW.”

We need to get past the myth that it's *fatal* if one entity gets enough to 51% attack PoS. The reality is they could attack *once*, and then they either get slashed or (if censorship attack) soft-forked away and inactivity-leaked, and they lose their coins so can't attack again. https://t.co/utash1hUDU

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) September 2, 2020

The concerns came a few days after the ETH fork as Ethereum Classic was hit with a third 51% attack over the past month. Network security was criticized and questioned since. The parent foundation behind Ethereum Classic said it will launch a complaint to find out who the attackers are and bring them to justice. However, this is a controversial move as there’s no regulation around the blockchain so any vulnerabilities could be exploited without a legal backlash.

Competition will be fierce. Free market will probably dampen the likelihood of this being existential.

More people building. More use cases = less risk of this. https://t.co/FT0ZDL9Cvs

— 🌊Sebastian Moonjava🌊 (@theDAOKING) September 2, 2020

In the meantime, Sebastian Moonjava who is an analyst at the social finance platform Real Vision, said that the risk of another 51% attack should decrease in time due to the competition in Defi. Right now, the DeFi market is booming and Uniswap has started to see a billion dollars in trading volume in coins such as YFII and SUSHI.