Single Account Overloads Ethereum Network, Spam Suspected

Transactions from an unknown account are taking a substantial amount of Ethereum’s resources

Tue, 7/08/2018 - 9:45

Single Account Overloads Ethereum Network, Spam Suspected

Cover image via U.Today

The Ethereum platform seems to be facing another spam attack. One address that is performing transactions to send and receive coins from other addresses is taking up over 24 percent of the gas. In the early morning on Aug. 7th, the flow of those operations reached its peak and then the gas use began to decrease.

Users on Etherscan believe that if in the past a peak in the activity on Ethereum was due to airdrops and was caused by projects making their online operations, now it looks like direct spam activity.

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Estimated costs of the attack

Over the past day, Ethereum has faced a large volume of transactions. Anyway, it is still lower than 700,000. The regular price for an operation on Ethereum is still $0.017. But if a user wants a quicker transaction, the price may go up.

The current spam attack seems to cost around $20,000 considering the amount sent and received, 150,000 ETH, and the increments of 0.02 ETH. Presently, the attacker has not been identified.

The most frequently used Blockchain apps mostly consume around 20 percent of gas. Peaks usually take place during ICOs or coin distributions.

Other Blockchains under attack

Ethereum is not the only platform that seems to be facing spam activity. Reportedly, EOS is at the moment also going through a transaction overload, though some community members believe that this is part of the hype.

EOS

Hype: Insane transaction rate. Real worlds applications on the blockchain. Ethereum Killer!

Reality: Goverance turmoil. Greed. Centralization. Account banning. No applications but token spam.#EOS #Crypto
— Carter L Woetzel (@l_woetzel) August 6, 2018

Fake spam attacks

The problem is when fake transactions overload any Blockchain network, it created an impression of high activity, which in reality does not exist, thus creating hype around the projects that are hardly ever used in real life.

Crypto exchanges sometimes also create faked trading volumes to lure new users and attract general public attention in the crypto space.

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About the author

Yuri Molchan

Yuri is interested in technology and technical innovations. He has been writing about DLT and crypto since 2017. Believes that blockchain and cryptocurrencies have a potential to transform the world in the future in many of its aspects. He has written for multiple crypto media outlets. His articles have been quoted by such crypto influencers as Tyler Winklevoss, John McAfee, CZ Binance, Max Keiser, etc.