Published
5 years ago on
September 27, 2018
“The burning bug is a bug that could have allowed hackers to drain Monero XMR assets from any exchange or wallet, at a very low cost. This all comes down to the fact that Monero can ‘burn’ XMR on the network, in the same way Bitcoin and Ethereum can. Burns can occur when the Monero blockchain detects transactions between identical stealth addresses, it assumes these are illegitimate and ‘burns’ one of the transactions, allowing just one ‘legitimate’ transaction to remain. When this happens, the XMR isn’t removed, it’s simply just made unusable. It is this burning process that allows hackers to directly extract XMR straight off the blockchain via external wallets, such as those that may be found at cryptocurrency exchanges.”On the 25th of September 2018, the Electroneum team tweeted, stating that:
“We've just asked ETN exchanges to suspend ETN deposits until we analyse and patch exchange wallets. Monero just found a bug and we are checking to see if we have the same bug, or if it was introduced after we forked from Monero. Normal service will resume ASAP.”Since then, the team have again tweeted, stating that ETN deposits have been made live again and that all exchanges have been informed that the bug has been removed. According to their recent tweet, the only users who need to take action as a result of this are command line users of the Electroneum network, otherwise no further action needs to be taken.With the bug now fixed and no longer affecting Monero or Electroneum, it seems that normal service has now resumed. As a mineable cryptocurrency, it is easy to see how the popularity of Electroneum has been on the rise recently, despite its low and often falling value. According to Cryptovest:
“Since July, the mining activity for Electroneum has been growing noticeably, rising from around 14 million H/s in July to above 6.3 billion H/s, possibly showing the usage of ASIC pointed to the network. The Electroneum team initially attempted to disable ASIC mining but eventually chose to allow a larger network with higher difficulty.”What next for Electroneum?As stated, Electroneum is a growing project. Many do believe that it’s a risky investment, however the recent low price of ETN has given new investors a good opportunity to buy in. By being susceptible to bugs such as the Monero burning bug, some caution should be aired when considering ETN as an investment, however it seems the team at Eletroneum are always working hard and are on the lookout for such vulnerabilities. We do have some confidence in the team here, though always remember that any form of cryptocurrency investment can be risky and that before you do buy, you should remember to do adequate prior research. References Cryptovest @Electroneum Investment Disclaimer
