According to the latest report, the MESS system launched by ETC Labs to protect Ethereum Classic against “51%” attacks may not be as effective or secure as other alternative solutions.
This summer, the ETC blockchain fell victim to three 51% attacks in a month. In mid-October, ETC Labs implemented MESS (Modified Exponential Estimation of Subjectivity) to reduce the likelihood of future attacks by 51%.
However, according to a report by IOHK and ETC Cooperative, “The MESS solution will not provide the required level of security and there is no guarantee that further attacks will not be successful.” In addition, MESS does not provide “high confidence to stakeholders that confirmation time will be reduced to the desired level”.
MESS is designed to make reorganizing a large number of blocks 31 times more expensive, theoretically negating a 51% attack profitability. As ETC Labs previously stated, if MESS, activated on October 10 after successful testing, had been implemented back in the summer, 51% attacks on the Ethereum Classic blockchain would have cost the attackers $ 20 million.
IOHK and ETC Cooperative have studied various solutions proposed by development teams from across the ETC community and have stated that checkpoint and time stamp solutions will provide better security than MESS.
According to the report, the timestamps would allow ETC to base its security on another secure blockchain like Bitcoin. The checkpoint system implies that the “trusted authority” chooses a block that will represent an unchangeable standard for all participants in the network.
ETC Cooperative CEO Bob Summerwill said he hopes the report will be the first step towards decentralized decision making by ETC developers. The report also proposes to implement a “decentralized treasury” that provides a constant source of funding for the future development of the ETC platform.
“A democratic and transparent funding mechanism will also allow the ETC community to determine its future direction of development and choose which innovations will be included in the ETC” ,.
The report claims that this will ultimately allow ETC to “keep up with and even surpass other platforms.”
