The fact two addresses were mining over 90% of all BCH blocks in early August caused significant concern across the cryptocurrency community. As it stands, the situation has shifted sideways instead of diffusing, with a new address now dominating the mining. I reviewed a chunk of 300 blocks from the BCH blockchain, and matched each block to the wallet that mined it. To spare you having to view a list of 300 blocks, here is a representative chunk of 60 - blocks 480254 to 480313:
As you can see, there is one power player who is yet to identify themselves mining around 55% of all the blocks. As identity in the mining world is entirely self-reported, there is no way to be sure if this is an individual or a mining pool. Regardless, we can see:
- Address 1KuxGYqhn5RsWqjXzy5qHbwnBavsfRxdJG (Miner C) mined 32/60 blocks (53%)
- Address 1BgatB78WrFLdCgnPnBqiDcNFFA46jkPZe (Miner B) mined 5/60 blocks (8%)
- Address 1Mn8mkxYm6GGcdUH5Ts3XJN4Ujz4CJerbW (Miner A) mined 4/60 blocks (7%)
- All other blocks were mined by pools, which accounted for 19/60 blocks (32%)
Earlier in August, miners A and B were mining over 90% of all blocks. This marks a phenomenal power shift, assuming that the miners did not simply change their wallet addresses, which is impossible to check. Fortunately, we are seeing pools increase their network share on the BCH network, which should thin the lead held by Miner C. The mining spread for the last 1000 BCH blocks was:
Meanwhile, the spread for the last 144 is leaning much more heavily in favour of pools, with viaBTC and Antpool increasing their stake significantly:
Due to BCH becoming more profitable to mine than its parent chain somewhere on the evening of August 17th, it is likely we will see the hash rate increase significantly. This will result in further thinning of the power controlled by Miner C, who could currently carry out a 51% attack against the BTC chain should they so choose. Of course, such an attack remains unlikely as it would not make economic sense for the largest miner to invalidate the blockchain they are investing in.
Regardless of any of the above, without knowing who is responsible for the mining activity of Miner C there is plenty of reason for concern. Most interestingly, they seem to have no interest in selling off any of the mined BCH, instead choosing to stockpile it for the time being. It will be interesting to see the miner(s) in question reveal their identity - until which point we can do nothing but speculate.
Content credit:
BCH, Cointelegraph
