Developers and the community took part in the 30 minute presentation from IOHK.  They joined, asked questions and provided feedback.

On September 04, 2020, Ethereum Classic tweeted:  “@InputOutputHK devs are set to give their presentation on “Checkpointing”—a way to prevent future 51% attacks. We kindly ask other ECIP authors i.e. @MaxwellSanchezX of @veriblock, @SDLerner + @dieguito of @RSKsmart & @Dexaran join us!”

Ethereum Classic expressed that, “The Immutability Promise of the EthereumClassic does not speak directly to any particular set, complete or partial, of chain data. Instead, it speaks to the intention of continuing a network and database protocol as designed ad infinitum.”

For all practical reasons, the longest chain is always considered the valid one. Since there are possibilities for nodes to cling on to a branch and believe that they are the first, and others are able to see that there is another branch the first, it has been well-established that the CPU powered proof-of-work vote should have the final say.  Thus, the key to keep all on the same page is to believe that the longest chain is always the valid one, irrespective of other parameters in place.

Also, modes are never coerced into a permanent reliance on any peer or set of peers.  There is nothing called a single temporal understanding of the network state, which is permanent. While it is possible for nodes to be fooled for a few minutes or sometimes even a week; however, in the long run with clearly defined network preconditions the peers and miners need to arrive at the consensus.

Sydney Ifergan, the crypto expert tweeted:  “The current check pointing proposals are meant to prevent the 51% attack on Ethereum Classic.  The ECIP showcase is recorded and archived for those who missed the event live.”

Meanwhile ETC are exploring other options and they are continuing to work with others to test and evaluate solutions to ongoing attacks. Further, they have also reminded miners, exchanges, and others to sustain increased confirmation requirements.  The current security plan has already been published live under the title, “ETC Network Security Plan.”

Ethereum Classic (ETC) Check Pointing Configuration

The overview of the check pointing configuration is already available in a recorded Youtube video that runs for 11 minutes and 57 seconds.  The video is titled Securing Ethereum Classic Via Checkpointing.

The demo showed successful double-spend and liveness attacks which occur on an unsecured chain.  Further on the resistance to the attacks when protected by the checkpointing service. This implementation is based upon the academic research from IOHK researchers like Aggelos Kiayias and Dimitris Karakostas in their paper “Securing Proof-of-Work Ledgers via Checkpointing”.