Ethereum 'Roll Back' Suggestion Has Sparked Criticism. Here's Why It Won't Happen

3 months ago

On Friday, cryptocurrency exchange Bybit was allegedly hacked by North Korea’s Lazarus group, which drained astir $1.4 cardinal successful ether (ETH) from the exchange.

Following the hack, Arthur Hayes, BitMEX co-founder and claiming to beryllium a large ether (ETH) holder, wrote a post connected X to Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin connected whether helium volition “advocate to rotation backmost the concatenation to assistance @Bybit_Official.” Meanwhile, successful an X spaces session, Bybit’s CEO Ben Zhou revealed that his squad had besides reached out to the Ethereum Foundation to spot if it was thing the web would consider, noting that specified a determination should beryllium based connected what the network's assemblage wants.

Hayes's station instantly provoked a fierce absorption from the Ethereum community, which was steadfast successful its content that it wouldn't happen. Some adjacent questioned whether the BitMEX laminitis was joking. CoinDesk reached retired to Hayes implicit X to clarify his comments.

Ethereum members, similar the halfway developer teams, are vastly against “rolling back” the web due to the fact that it would override halfway elements of decentralization. If Buterin decided connected his ain that it would happen, past that would beryllium seen arsenic the extremity of Ethereum’s ethos, which heavy involves assorted developer teams and different assemblage members erstwhile it comes to the wellness and authorities of the blockchain.

“Rolling backmost the concatenation would springiness ETH nary purpose. What's the constituent if you tin conscionable alteration rules,” said idiosyncratic @the_weso in a station connected X.

Some outside the Ethereum assemblage pointed to the 2016 DAO hack arsenic an example erstwhile $60 cardinal successful ETH was stolen. The web went guardant with a hard fork, splitting the aged web into two, and the caller concatenation continued connected arsenic Ethereum.

That hard fork was not a “rollback,” though; it was known arsenic an “irregular authorities transition.” Ethereum technically can’t “roll back” the web due to the fact that it relies connected an relationship model, wherever accounts clasp users' ETH.

At the clip of the hack, developers upgraded their nodes to a caller lawsuit oregon software. Those who didn’t upgrade their nodes were inactive connected the aged chain, which became known arsenic Ethereum Classic.

When the nodes upgraded to the caller software, the stolen ETH could determination from 1 Ethereum relationship code to the next.

“The 'irregular authorities change' that they implemented astatine the clip of the DAO hard fork was this: they airlifted each the ETH successful the DAO astute contracts retired to a refund declaration that would nonstop you 1 ETH for each 100 DAO tokens you sent in,” wrote Laura Shin of Unchained in a station connected X.

Read more: Arthur Hayes Floats the Idea of Rolling Back Ethereum Network to Negate $1.4B Bybit Hack, Drawing Community Ire

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