The three types of attacks Ethereum could face in its proof-of-stake avatar

ETH

Ethereum (ETH) rose more than 9% to hit a new high on Friday. This was a few days after the network had successfully undergone the Altair upgrade. ETH, the native token of the second-largest blockchain by market cap, blasted to $4,415, ergo, crossing its previous ATH. Needless to say, different analysts have described various bullish sentiments regarding this flagship token.

On its path toward the transition into a proof-of-stake (PoS) network, it saw recent upgrades like Berlin, London, and Altair. However, there are some things to note about this upgrade according to a recently submitted white paper. It noted that there are 3 attack vectors on  a “proof-of-work Ethereum” blockchain.

Computer scientists at Stanford University and the Ethereum Foundation believe in the possibility of specific types of attacks on Ethereum. Tuur Demeester, a Bitcoin enthusiast shared the said paper to highlight the same. He highlighted two key aspects, including “close range reorganizations” and “contradictory network delay”.

The paper titled “Three Attacks on Proof-of-Stake Ethereum” covered the two types of attacks mentioned above, and here comes the third-in-line. The document noted: “By combining the techniques of the two refined attacks, we obtain a third attack which allows an adversary with an extremely low stake fraction and no control over the propagation of messages over the network (assuming instead a propagation of probabilistic messages) to even provoke reorganizations of the long-term consensus chain. . “

Furthermore,

“Honest-but-rational or ideologically motivated validators could use this attack to increase their profits or stall the protocol, threatening incentive alignment and security of PoS Ethereum. The attack can also lead to a destabilization of the consensus due to the congestion in the processing of votes. “

The attack could also lead to “destabilization of consensus from congestion in vote processing,” the paper’s authors noted. On top of that, Bram Cohen, founder of Project Chia and creator of BitTorrent, also shared a similar point of view. He tweeted,

“Some issues with ETH2 consensus, we obtain a third attack which allows an adversary with vanishingly small fraction of stake to cause even long-range consensus chain reorganizations”

Needless to say, it was almost immediately criticized by various pro-ETH holders. For example, this ETH promoter expressed his opinion,

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