Once $80-million privacy crypto Grin comes under 51% attack

At its highs, GRIN had a market capitalization of $80 million.

While both now have a market capitalization of approximately $15 million apiece, they have still come under fire from attackers.

Grin, for one, was just reported to have seen a 51 percent attack.

Yesterday, an altcoin-focused mining pool 2Miners began to report that the Grin Network had come under 51 percent attack.

A blockchain can be 51 percent attacked when one entity acquires more than 50 percent of the network's hash rate, allowing them to outpace the other miners to build a blockchain for malicious purposes.

Emin Gün Sirer, a professor at Cornell University and the CEO Of crypto startup Avalanche, corroborated this, writing that he thinks the network got 51 percent attacked.

"Looks like Grin got 51% attacked. PoW is insecure unless: 1) The coin is the dominant one for its hashing algo, and 2) Mining involves dedicated hardware Combined, these mean that mining will always be in the hands of a small number of specialists, hurting decentralization."

It is currently unclear what effects this attack has had on exchanges or those that interact with GRIN. But feasibly, the attacker could have made false deposits on exchanges that support the cryptocurrency, traded those coins for another cryptocurrency, then issued a withdrawal request.

The 51 percent attack on the Grin Network comes after two similar attacks on Ethereum Classic.

"Why isn't #ethereumclassic worth zero? It has a $800mm mkt cap. Why own something that can be easily attacked and stolen when there are so many alternatives. Digital currency is supposed to be secure. What am I missing here?".