ZelNodes 51% Resistance, A Found Issue & Future Chain Reorg. Controls
By doing their job to protect the Zel chain, ZelNodes brought to light an issue that Zel will address in the next Network Upgrade, along with ZelFlux in November
Yesterday, October 17th, the Zel chain split (unintentionally) from a single pool having greater than 51% of the network hash power. The 2Miners pool operators notified the Zel team of the issue immediately and we were all able to work together to trace down the issue; so first off, big thanks to 2Miners’ team for their swift actions.
What Happened
A majority of hash power created a second, longer chain than the Zel mainchain. ZelNodes did their job protecting the chain against 51% hash leveraging by keeping the original (now shorter) chain as the mainchain. This occurred with the ZelNodes recognizing the ZelNode winners as decided on by the original chain, and rejecting the newer list created by the newer, longer chain.
The previously unforeseen issue that arose from this event is that the ZelNodes (and other p2p Zel nodes) would join the non-official chain after a restart, which is normal as blockchains fundamentally follow the longer chain. To remedy this issue, Zel as a project is officially deciding that ZelNodes will decide the correct chain. The loophole of miscommunication between the POW power and ZelNodes rewards list will be corrected in an upcoming Network Upgrade.
To Miners — Please Spread The Hash!
The chain split is a good reminder of two things: 1) There is always more work to be done to better a project’s blockchain technology through Community involvement; and 2) The spread of hash power is very important to a project’s health and future growth.
By nature, blockchain is decentralized. This is great for many reasons, one being that project health relies on the Community’s mining choices. The biggest help the Community can give is to also decentralize the hash power as wide as possible. So to miners out there, please consider where you are mining and maybe explore a new pool or three to see what options are available. There are many great Zel pools out there that could use some love.
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Written by Zel Technologies, GmbH — 18 October 2019 — Rev. 1
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