‘Lack of Finality’ — Single Mining Pool Commands 53% of Zcash’s Hashrate

Recent information shows a azygous mining excavation controls much than 53% of the hashrate for the cryptocurrency web Zcash. On September 19, 2023, the crypto mining excavation Viabtc had 4.2 giga solutions per 2nd (GSol/s) of Zcash’s full 7.84 GSol/s hashrate. Electric Coin Co., which oversees the Zcash project’s codebase, acknowledged the contented Tuesday, citing a “lack of finality.”

Zcash Network Hashrate Faces Dominance: Industry Players and Electric Coin Co Respond

Recently, chatter wrong crypto circles has centered connected the Zcash protocol, particularly aft observations that Viabtc holds implicit 51% of the network’s full hashrate. On September 19, 2023, astatine 6:49 p.m. Eastern Time, archived records uncover Viabtc’s hashrate dominating with 53.69% of the total, registering astatine 4.2 GSol/s retired of an wide 7.84 GSol/s. Just days prior, the crypto speech Coinbase released a “Security PSA” titled “Observed risks successful Zcash mining excavation distribution.”

In the PSA, Coinbase elaborate the prevailing contented and mentioned its nonstop engagement with the Zcash team. To safeguard lawsuit assets from imaginable issues, Coinbase took measures including shifting its Zcash markets to a “limit-only state.” Alongside this Coinbase stated:

[Coinbase] accrued the Zcash confirmation request to 110 blocks to trim hazard of double-spending oregon fraudulent transactions. This increases deposit clip from ~40 minutes to ~2.5 hours.

Following the merchandise of the blog post, Electric Coin Co. (ECC) took to societal level X to address the PSA. “ECC is alert of this issue, and we’ve had conversations with Coinbase, Viabtc, Zcash’s information lead, and [Zcash Community Grants],” ECC stated. Emphasizing Zcash’s decentralized nature, the squad pointed retired that, “Zcash is simply a decentralized, open-source web with nary ‘lead developer,’ nary ‘issuer,’ and nary org that controls it.”

ECC underscored the crux of the issue: finality. The institution explained, “the occupation is caused by a deficiency of finality, which affects each proof-of-work blockchains.” The firm’s projected solution? “Our Trailing Finality Layer (TFL) connection is intended to hole that by providing finality for Zcash.” Further, ECC highlighted a displacement to proof-of-stake (PoS) arsenic a beneficial determination for Zcash, tagging it arsenic 1 of their “top 4 priorities.”

ECC added, “If the assemblage chooses to activate the TFL hybrid-PoW-PoS approach, that would alteration finality connected the Zcash web sooner than an all-in-one displacement to proof-of-stake. The adjacent measurement successful our PoS R&D is to physique a prototype of TFL to spot however it performs.”

What bash you deliberation astir the authorities of Zcash’s web hashrate and the offset mining excavation distribution? Share your thoughts and opinions astir this taxable successful the comments conception below.