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Recent reports suggest that Bitcoin is under a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack, causing prices to drop and transaction fees to increase. The attack, observers say, is organized using spam inscriptions that clog the network, causing inconvenience to users.
Bitcoin under attack?
The so-called spam transactions through the Bitcoin Ordinals platform have led many to speculate that this is a DDoS attack.
In a DDoS attack, attackers seek to overload a network or server with traffic from multiple sources, making it inaccessible to users. In this case, the target was Bitcoin nodes tasked with confirming transactions.
Majority of tx’s are currently just spamming the block space.
They’re all 152.5vb in size transacting precisely 0.00000546 btc.
DDOS test? pic.twitter.com/l9yDTnkuL9
— Andrew (@dAnconiaMining) May 7, 2023
The memory pool, more commonly known as the mempool, holds uncommitted but valid transactions pending processing and remains clogged with transactions.
The analysis shows that the number of unconfirmed transactions currently exceeds 466,000, mostly assets from the Bitcoin Ordinals platform created using UniSat.
UniSat is an open source wallet and Chrome extension that allows users to store and transfer BRC-20 compliant Ordinals tokens and tokens.
BRC-20 tokens are fungible tokens compatible with the Bitcoin network. The wallet was temporarily closed after multiple double spending attacks on the platform.
⚠️Due to some existing issues UniSat Marketplace is temporarily not available for accessing.
Sorry for the inconvenience. We’ll keep you updated on this.
– UniSat Wallet – Store, Inscribe and Search. (@unisat_wallet) April 23, 2023
The marketplace reopened on April 27, 2023, coinciding with an increase in transaction fees and a surge in transactions on the Bitcoin network. As of May 6, the number of bitcoin transactions on the network has reached an all-time high.
Signs of what lies ahead?
Analysts fear that the recent spike in transactions, resembling a sustained DDoS attack, could indicate potential coordinated sabotage by attackers. According to analysts, these entities may seek to cause instability and unreliability in the Bitcoin network.
In response to the flow of transactions from the Ordinals platform, transaction fees on the Bitcoin network have risen as the network has become congested.
Bitcoin is under DoS attack. High transaction fees are the chosen pain point by the attacker, probably to makes bitcoin unusable for smaller players. pic.twitter.com/0J56liNSGf
— iris.to/jogi (@proofofjogi) May 7, 2023
Meanwhile, prices are lower, approaching the $27,000 mark. This level is a critical support level flashing with the April 2023 lows.
Bitcoin Price May 8 | Source: BTCUSDT on Binance, TradingView
As the price of BTC continues to fall, investors and traders are increasingly concerned about the overall health of the cryptocurrency market, which is already experiencing significant volatility, with many tokens posting double-digit losses.
PEPE, the meme token, fell 33% on its last trading day. While some believe that a DDoS attack could be a temporary setback that will end once the criminals run out of BTC, others are concerned that it could be a sign of a broader trend of increasing cyberattacks on the blockchain.
BRC-20 token creations.
Shitcoins on #bitcoin is here.
Everything is good for bitcoin. We knew high transactions fees were coming, but now we need to figure out a way to navigate this.
Good thing is they will eventually run out of bitcoin by doing this.
— Chris Alaimo (@ChrisAlaimo6) May 6, 2023
