According to recent data, one mining pool dominates the Zcash cryptocurrency network, controlling more than 53% of the hashrate. The crypto mining pool Viabtc held 4.2 giga solutions per second (GSol/s) of Zcash's overall 7.84 GSol/s hashrate on September 19, 2023. The Zcash project's codebase manager, Electric Coin Co., confirmed the problem on Tuesday and blamed it on a "lack of finality."
Electric Coin Company and Industry Participants React as Zcash Network Hashrate Faces Dominance
The Zcash protocol has recently been the topic of discussion in the cryptosphere, especially in light of revelations that Viabtc controls more than 51% of the network's total hashrate. Archived records show that on September 19, 2023, at 6:49 p.m. Eastern Time, Viabtc's hashrate dominated with 53.69% of the total, clocking in at 4.2 GSol/s out of a total of 7.84 GSol/s. Just a few of days earlier, the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase published a "Security PSA" with the heading "Observed risks in Zcash mining pool distribution."
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| On September 19, 2023, the top five Zcash mining pools. |
Coinbase described the current problem and stated its direct interaction with the Zcash team in the PSA. In order to protect user assets from potential problems, Coinbase has taken action, including putting its Zcash markets in a "limit-only state." Coinbase added the following to this:
In order to decrease the possibility of double spending or fraudulent transactions, [Coinbase] upped the Zcash confirmation requirement to 110 blocks. Due to this, deposit times now take 2.5 hours instead of the previous 40.
Following the publication of the blog article, Electric Coin Co. (ECC) addressed the PSA on social media site X. ECC said that it was aware of the problem and that it has spoken with Viabtc, Coinbase, Zcash's security head, and [Zcash Community Grants]. The team emphasized Zcash's decentralized character by saying, "Zcash is a decentralized, open-source network with no 'lead developer,' no 'issuer,' and no org that controls it."
ECC emphasized the key component of the problem: finality. According to the business, "the problem is caused by a lack of finality, which affects all proof-of-work blockchains." The suggestion made by the business? "By giving Zcash finality, our Trailing Finality Layer (TFL) proposal seeks to correct that." A switch to proof-of-stake (PoS) was also cited by ECC as a step that would be advantageous for Zcash and listed as one of their "top four priorities."
"If the community decides to implement the TFL hybrid-PoW-PoS approach, that would enable finality on the Zcash network sooner than an all-in-one switch to proof-of-stake," continued ECC. The next phase of our PoS R&D is to construct a TFL prototype and evaluate its functionality.
What do you think about the distribution of offset mining pools and the current state of the Zcash network hashrate? Post your ideas and viewpoints on this topic in the comments area below.