Edward Snowden’s cryptocurrency was attacked with only $ 10

The blockchain of the privacy-oriented cryptocurrency Zcash (ZEC) has been subjected to a spam attack.

The zcash spam attack continues. Almost every block contains a shielded transaction with hundreds of outputs. In doing so, the spammer can successfully blow up the size of the chain by maxing out each 2mb block every 75 seconds. The cost of each spammed transaction? Less than a cent.

— xenu (@xenumonero) October 5, 2022

«The spam attack on Zcash continues. Almost every block contains a secure transaction with hundreds of outputs. At the same time, the spammer successfully increases the size of the chain, expanding the block to 2 MB. At the same time, thecost of a spam transaction is less than a cent,» wrote Twitter user xenu. Jameson Lopp, co-founder of VTS security provider Casa, estimated that the attack costs the fraudster about $ 10 per day.

Experts find it difficult to determine the purpose of the attack. A researcher with the nickname Nick bax. eth from Convex Labs named three possible motives:

• for fun (IT trolling);
• to make a profit — problems in the Zcash blockchain are likely to lead to a drop in the cryptocurrency’s rate;
• to prevent the launch of nodes.

One Twitter user with the nickname dan suggested that the developers of Monero, another confidential cryptocurrency, were behind the attack. «I don’t see any other losers wasting time on this. Zcash is a competitor to Monero, so they are trying to weaken it,» he wrote.

It’s probably the Monero boys who are doing it. I don’t see any other losers who would waste time doing this. Zcash is Monero’s rival so they are trying to weaken it. It’s one of the reasons I don’t invest in Monero. I just don’t like the people in that community

— dan? (@igototokyo) October 5, 2022

Monero’s reaction was not long in coming and was quite ironic. «What is Zcash?» — they wrote.

What is zcash? pic.twitter.com/E2vMLu6Wk0

— The Monero Club (@themoneroclub) October 5, 2022

At the time of writing, ZCash (ZEC) is trading for $ 56.44, and the asset’s market capitalization is $ 727.33 million.

At the end of April, former NSA employee Edward Snowden admitted that he participated in the launch of the privacy-oriented cryptocurrency ZCash back in 2016. The information appeared in a video by the Zcash Media project, a channel that publishes news about this digital currency. «My name is Edward Snowden, and I participated in the Zcash ceremony under the pseudonym John Dobbertyn ,» the former intelligence officer said at the time. - «I am very happy that Zcash is moving towards the ideal of a true free cryptocurrency.»

We would like to add that it is impossible to track user transactions on the Zcash network, which makes it a truly anonymous way to transfer funds from account to account.