Jameson Lopp, Chief Security Officer, Casa, a self-custody platform, has taken responsibility for the Bitcoin network grief attack that adversely affected its day-to-day functioning. A typical grief attack consists of spamming financial transactions on a Bitcoin network and disrupting normal operations. It is not guaranteed that a hacker can surely get financial benefits from a grief attack on the Bitcoin Testnet.
In a social media post, Jameson Lopp stated that his Bitcoin testnet grief attack resulted in over 165,000 blocks generated in the past week. Block difficulty data, as well as hashrate on Bitcoin, showed hashrate escalating to 2315 Th/s.
According to Jameson Lopp, the whole operation cost him $1 worth of electricity, which he answered in response to a commentator’s question. Jameson Lopp’s grievous attack did not harm the Bitcoin testnet significantly.
Prominent leaders in the crypto community argue that the unprecedented attack was ill-timed, causing Bitcoin app developers to lose valuable time. Lopp explained that real Bitcoin developers only noticed the incident when he claimed the operation’s responsibility. He even said that Bitcoin developers should treat the attack as a free test network on the Bitcoin network.
The global crypto fraternity harshly criticized Jameson Lopp’s statement, which affected node syncing on the Bitcoin network. Leading developers responded by advocating for the ban of permissionless testnets. Their response suggests that we can develop new parameters for the accessibility of test Bitcoin networks once we reach an agreement on adjustments.
Jameson Lopp has made it clear that he will soon publish an essay with full details regarding the grieving attack. He had even sent a warning email to the Bitcoin development email list a few weeks prior to the grieving attack.