Cryptocurrency DASH is in danger as one wallet owner has 51% of the total hash rate. This unknown individual owns at least three, and perhaps even the four, of the biggest wallets where mined DASH coins are being placed. Nicehash is a cloud mining company that generates 1.000 TH/s in mining power, while the entire network is running with 1.900 TH/s. Nicehash is a respectable company in the crypto space, but this much hash power is potentially dangerous.
Nicehash is a mining pool that is being used by over 25 thousand miners. For the sake of decentralization and stability of the network, it would be good if a decent percentage of the Nicehash users would switch towards Antpool, CoinMine, ZPool, ViaBTC or CoinFoundry.
The three addresses from the single miner have mined a total of 26.665 DASH, which equals over 2.2 million dollars. Ultimately this is the result of ASIC mining hardware being compatible with the DASH blockchain. When this happened to Monero (XMR), they decided to fork their chain to a modified algorithm that's better at circumventing the power of ASIC miners.
The development team behind DASH is currently working on implementing "Chainlocks". This new feature would be able to combat 51% attacks. It's not yet known when this feature will be implemented.
DASH has been in the news a lot lately. The cryptocurrency has become a household name in Venezuela and other South American countries. Easy payment solutions through POS devices, smartphones and SMS services make DASH a beloved alternative for failing fiat currencies.
51% Attacks have been in the news lately. Ethereum Classic (ETC) got hit by such an attack over the weekend. The hacker gained a majority of the hashing power and was able to create $1.1 million worth of ETC coins. Crypto exchange Gate.io has reported it lost $220 thousand because of the hack, and it will fully reimburse users that lost money because of the attack.
Posted from my blog: https://www.nederob.nl/2019/01/10/dash-sensitive-for-51-attack/