> Once hailed as unhackable, blockchains are now getting hacked
This might be fine if the article didn't talk at such length about majority hash rate attacks. It implies that this kind of attack is something new, which it most certainly is not.
You can think of a soft fork (one path to upgrading the network) as a coordinated majority hash rate attack. A cartel decides that they will censor blocks that don't conform to a restricted version of the protocol. Whether you call it an attack depends maybe on intent, but the mechanism is identical.
The Bitcoin white paper explains very clearly the main security assumption: an attacker does not control a majority of the hash power. It's been part of the security model from the beginning.
Most of the other attacks have been launched against Ethereum. Its scripting system is quite a bit more complex than Bitcion's, so its attack surface is larger.
> Once hailed as unhackable, blockchains are now getting hacked
This might be fine if the article didn't talk at such length about majority hash rate attacks. It implies that this kind of attack is something new, which it most certainly is not.
You can think of a soft fork (one path to upgrading the network) as a coordinated majority hash rate attack. A cartel decides that they will censor blocks that don't conform to a restricted version of the protocol. Whether you call it an attack depends maybe on intent, but the mechanism is identical.
The Bitcoin white paper explains very clearly the main security assumption: an attacker does not control a majority of the hash power. It's been part of the security model from the beginning.
Most of the other attacks have been launched against Ethereum. Its scripting system is quite a bit more complex than Bitcion's, so its attack surface is larger.