Some situations in the crypto world can go as crazy as possible. Here’s a great example.

Those responsible for the 51% attack on the Ethereum Classic blockchain returned $ 100,000 in ETC.

According to the official blog of the crypto exchange Gate.io, on January 10, an anonymous hacker returned $ 100,000 in Ethereum Classic (ETC) cryptocurrency to this exchange company, without giving any explanation.

White hacker performed 51% attack?

The crypto exchange team Gate.io tried to contact a hacker (or organization), but their attempts were unsuccessful. Thus, the exchange could not get any explanation about the motivation of this incident.

Now, Gate.io assumes that this campaign was aimed at pointing out the risks associated with the use of cryptocurrencies, trading and security of the blockchain based on the Proof of Work protocol.

The Gate.io article states:

If the attacker didn’t run it for profit, he might be a white hacker who wanted to remind people the risks in blockchain consensus and hashing power security



The Gate.io team also explains that the possibility of such attacks always exists, since, in general, hash capacity leasing to get 51% control over the blockchain is relatively inexpensive.

In order to avoid further attacks, Gate.io followed the advice of the developers of Ethereum Classic, which was posted on Twitter, and increased the number of transaction confirmations to 4,000, and also took a number of other measures to enhance protection.

Skeptic reaction

The Twitter community’s response to the “possible good intentions of the hacker” was extremely critical and skeptical. For example, Mati Greenspan, chief analyst at eToro, pointed out that the amount returned is too small compared to the amount actually stolen.

Coinbase found $1.1 million worth of double spent coins. This article said they retrieved $100k. — Mati Greenspan (@MatiGreenspan) January 12, 2019

Others stated that it could hardly be called the “knight” of the one who robbed the bank, and then decided to return the money.

Returning the 10% of the fund stolen doesn’t sound like chivalrous behavior for sure, but what was that? Returning the unplanned extra funds or was it the exchange that exaggerated the loss? Please share your opinion.