The cryptocurrency Krypton based on Ethereum has been under attack resulting in 21,465 coins stolen. This may be a beginning of a larger assault on Ethereum Classic, the founder Stephanie Kent claims.

According to her, the attackers used the method of double spending: they concentrated in their hands 51% of the total capacity of the network hashing, placed deposits in Krypton tokens on Bittrex exchange and then made a double withdrawal deceiving the system’s blockchain. The total amount lost is estimated at $3,000.

Krypton has temporarily ceased deposits and withdrawals of the tokens on Bittrex and Yobit exchanges.

“This attack may be a “dry run” intended as proof of concept before targeting other Ethereum based blockchains. <...> It is suspected that the attackers may be using these lower cap coins as a testnet before targeting Ethereum Classic.”

According to Kent, two weeks ago there was a similar attack against another cryptocurrency in the Ethereum ecosystem — Shift. The attackers then also gained 51% of the hashing capacity. Both cryptosystems are currently working to improve the level of security, CoinTelegraph notes. Krypton, in particular, is rising its hashing power and suggests Bittrex to increase the timeframe for funds withdrawal to 1000 confirmations, to eliminate the possibility of double spending.

The attack on Ethereum Classic will be more difficult to carry out because its hashing capacity is significantly higher than that of the Shift and Krypton, the experts point out.

Elena Platonova