QUADRIGA INITIATIVE
CRYPTO WATCHDOG & FRAUD RECOVERY PLATFORM
A COMMUNITY-BASED, NOT-FOR-PROFIT
$0 USD
FEBRUARY 2021
GLOBAL
VERGE
DESCRIPTION OF EVENTS
"Verge provides the security of blockchain based payments to everyday users with easy to use software tailored to real life needs and applications." "Verge gained attention in April 2018, when the world’s largest streaming pornography site, Pornhub, began accepting the cryptocurrency as an alternative way for clients to pay live webcam models."
"Malicious actors have tried to re-org the blockchain, The attack started late [on February 14th]." "Verge (XVG) has experienced a significant block reorganization, replacing transactions dating as far back as July 2020." "According to various reports, the cryptocurrency network Verge has suffered a 51% attack that led to a massive 560,000+ block reorganization. Analysts believe the Verge network attack could be the deepest blockchain reorganization (reorg) in history with roughly 200 days worth of verge transactions wiped."
"Antoine Le Calvez, an engineer at crypto asset data firm Coinmetrics pointed out in a Feb. 15 tweet that the Verge blockchain experienced a reorganization—change in transaction history—that is more than 560 thousand blocks deep. He said that the firm’s node of the network saw its transactions from after July 2020 change."
“The past 200 days worth of $XVG transaction history just vanished,” said Coinmetrics network data product manager, Lucas Nuzzi, on Twitter. “This is likely the deepest reorg that has ever taken place in a ‘top 100’ cryptocurrency.”
"Despite being described as potentially “the deepest reorg that has ever taken place in a top 100 cryptocurrency,” analysts are yet to confirm that the incident comprised a coordinated attack."
"All the transactions performed on the Verge network within the past 200 days have been rolled back as a result of the attack. The attackers presumably have done this to spend their XVG within the last 200 days and now reverse the transactions to get the asset back, after already having obtained the product or service that they paid for."
"As a result of this roll-back, any user who received or purchased XVG tokens since July 2020 may have lost their entire balance, with Deribit Insights’ researcher “Hasu” tweeting that “thousands of balances have simply evaporated.” One Verge investor tweeted that their wallet balance is now empty after the attack."
"In the last six hours, XVG has dropped by almost 15% to $0.0224. This has resulted in it moving out of the top 100, according to Coingecko. Verge’s explorer is still down."
"Within the core team, work had begun to figure out what happened." "A few, hours later, many exchanges and wallets stopped accepting inbound and outbound transactions."
"Verge developers are having a hard time today for sure. First, they accidently forked the entire blockchain and today, the developers are saying they will have to re-fork to patch the damage from the 51% attack. The fork, unfortunately, would not be released until tomorrow and this means the Verge’s blockchain will continue to get wrecked. The bug is still being exploited by the hacker and this means the hackers are free to unload their bags on exchanges. This makes it very easy to tank the price of Verge cryptocurrency."
"Despite the scale of the potential attack, Hasu believes it will be “pretty easy to counter,” advancing that “nodes will reject the attacker’s chain and restore the previous one.” Hasu stated the incident highlights the vulnerability of blockchains supported by GPU mining."
"Throughout the entire day, the dev team and a miner worked hand in hand to release a hot patch and work on future update to prevent this from happening again."
"Malicious elements have tried to take over our blockchain. Working with miners our dev team has released a fix, preventing damage. In 13 hours, it will be business as usual. Thank you for your understanding."
"In light of the recent events, if you're running a full Verge-qt node, please update to our latest release, 6.0.3. $XVG."
"Thank you to the miners having shown good faith and good business in helping us mine the proper blockchain. With your help, everyone’s funds remain safe and mining is profitable."
"If you haven’t done so, please update to qt 6.0.3. and ban nodes 6.0.2."
"Our team has gotten our block explorer repaired and resynced."
"We have written a short explainer of what went down in the last 24 hours. Your funds are SAFU, thanks everyone for your concern, feel free to reach us on our social media handles. $XVG"
"(1) Mine on a sidechain for months with reduced difficulty. (2) Spawn wnough deamons to go +50% of the total amount of full nodes. (3) The chain is rebuilt on top of that sidechain. (4) Top that with huge mining power on your new chain. (5) Use that verge you just mined to pay for the mining power."
The Verge network suffered a blockchain reorganization (similar to a 51% attack) where a miner had managed to mine several months worth of transactions on a separate chain. Through working with different miners, a software update was deployed with rejected the alternate chain.
HOW COULD THIS HAVE BEEN PREVENTED?
While some exchanges were unable to deposit/withdraw for a period of time, there were no noted losses.
Privacy Coin Verge Suffers Third 51% Attack, Analysis Shows 200 Days of XVG Transactions Erased – Altcoins Bitcoin News (Sep 15)
Verge Currency (Sep 15)
Verge, PornHub's first crypto, suffers 51% attack a half million blocks deep | Modern Consensus. (Sep 29)
@LucasNuzzi Twitter (Sep 29)
@vergecurrency Twitter (Oct 2)
@vergecurrency Twitter (Oct 2)
Release v6.0.3 · vergecurrency/verge · GitHub (Oct 2)
@vergecurrency Twitter (Oct 2)
The Verge Re Org Attempt (Oct 2)
What's a Blockchain Reorg? (Oct 2)
@vergecurrency Twitter (Oct 2)
@vergecurrency Twitter (Oct 2)
Verge of disaster: 200 days transactions wiped from blockchain (Oct 2)
@khannib Twitter (Oct 2)
Verge hard fork incoming to patch damage, lead dev accidentally forks entire blockchain - Cryptocoindaddy.com (Oct 2)
Network Attack on XVG / VERGE (Oct 2)
Verge (cryptocurrency) - Wikipedia (Oct 2)
Everything you need to know about the Verge (XVG) 51% attack | by CoinSwitch | CoinSwitch (Oct 2)
