Ethereum Community Split Over Onchain Rollback Amid Bybit Hack

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Ethereum‘s Dilemma: To Rollback or Not to Rollback? 🤔

Well now, gather ’round, folks! It seems that the good ship Ethereum has hit a bit of a storm, and the crew is split like a catfish on a hot skillet. As Bybit scrambles to pick up the pieces from a security breach that could make a rattlesnake blush, the Ethereum community is buzzing like a beehive in July. On one side, we have the rollback enthusiasts, who are hollering for a do-over to wipe out those pesky malicious transactions. On the other side, the purists are waving their arms like a windmill in a tornado, claiming that such a move would be the death knell for Ethereum’s credibility. Oh, the drama! 🎭

Forging Ahead With a Rollback

Now, let me tell you about a fella named Arthur Hayes, co-founder of BitMEX, who’s all aboard the rollback train. He’s pitching his tent on the notion that since Ethereum has already had a hard fork back in 2016, why not do it again? After all, if it worked once, it ought to work again, right? Hayes believes that rolling back the blockchain to thwart those North Korean hackers from using their ill-gotten gains should be a no-brainer for the validators. I reckon he’s got a point, but it’s like trying to catch a greased pig at the county fair! 🐖

Then we have Samson Mow, the CEO of Jan3, who’s been chatting with Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin about this rollback business. Mow’s got a wild idea to rename the rolled-back chain to $ETH and the current chain to $ETHNK. He’s even urging Coinbase and other exchanges to toss that $ETHNK out like last week’s leftovers. Now that’s a spicy meatball! 🍝

As the debate rages on like a summer storm, the hardliners in the Ethereum camp are getting a bit jittery. They’re claiming that the stolen ETH, pilfered by state-sponsored hackers, might just fund North Korea’s nuclear ambitions. And let me tell you, that $1.5 billion taken from the Bybit hack is no small potatoes—it’s bigger than a bull moose in a cornfield! 🌽

Now, a blockchain rollback is a fancy term for reversing confirmed transactions back to a previous state. It’s like hitting the rewind button on your favorite record, but it’s a bit more complicated than that. It usually involves some chain deployment after a security breach, and it can take several forms, including forks and chain reorganizations. Sounds like a real hootenanny, doesn’t it?

Ethereum Community Against The Rollback

But hold your horses! Not everyone is on board with this rollback idea. The blockchain proponents in the Ethereum community are standing firm against it, claiming it could erode Ethereum’s credibility faster than a politician’s promise. “A rollback can only happen if you split the chain. Ethereum’s reliability and neutrality would be at risk,” said a pseudonymous crypto trader named Borovik on X. “This should never happen, under no circumstances.” Well, that’s a mouthful! 🗣️

And wouldn’t you know it, Borovik’s got some backup from Bitcoin proponent Jimmy Song, who’s waving his finger and saying that the Bybit incident is a whole different kettle of fish compared to the 2016 DAO hack. Song argues that the Bybit hack is a settled affair, while the DAO hack took a month to unfold like a bad soap opera. “I know people are expecting the Ethereum Foundation to roll back the chain, but I suspect it’s already too much of a mess to do it cleanly,” he said. Sounds like a real pickle, doesn’t it? 🥒

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2025-02-22 23:16