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The attackers who managed to pull a second 51% attack against the Ethereum Classic (ETC) blockchain have double-spent nearly $1.7 million worth of ETC tokens, after reorganizing over 4,200 blocks on the blockchain.

A new survey has found bitcoin is still the go-to cryptocurrency for darknet marketplaces, with only 45% of surveyed darknet markets revealing they support the privacy-centric cryptocurrency Monero.

German authorities have seized over €25 million ($29.6 million) worth of bitcoin and bitcoin cash from the alleged programmer of a movie piracy website called movie2k.to.

Top stories in the Crypto Roundup today:

  • Hackers Double-Spent $1.7 Million in Second 51% Attack on Ethereum Classic
  • Bitcoin Is Still the Go-to Crypto for Darknet Marketplaces
  • German Authorities Seize $30 Million in BTC and BCH From Movie Piracy Site

At the time of writing, bitcoin (BTC) is trading at $11,975.94 (2.45%) with a daily Top Tier volume of $3.63 bn. As for ether (ETH), it is trading at $395.25 (0.16%) with a daily Top Tier volume of $1.81 bn. The MVIS CryptoCompare Digital Assets 10 Index is currently tracking at 4,597.79 (1.56%).

 
24 hours chart of the price of BTC
 

Hackers Double-Spent $1.7 Million in Second 51% Attack on Ethereum Classic

 

The attackers who managed to pull a second 51% attack against the Ethereum Classic (ETC) blockchain have double-spent nearly $1.7 million worth of ETC tokens, after reorganizing over 4,200 blocks on the blockchain.

According to an investigation by Bitquery, the attackers tried to double-spend a total of 465,444 ETC, worth over $3.3 million, but only successfully double-spent 238,306 ETC. They also generated 14,200 ETC through the block rewards of the blocks they mined with the hashpower.

The hashpower used for the attack was likely the same one used for the attack on August one: it was rented from DaggerHashimoto, a NiceHash user. This was the second attack Ethereum Classic suffered in the last few weeks. The cryptocurrency’s blockchain was also exploited last year through a 51% attack.

The core development group behind ETC, Ethereum Classic Labs, has hired law firm Kobre & Kim to investigate and pursue criminal charges against those behind the attacks.

 
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Bitcoin Is Still the Go-to Crypto for Darknet Marketplaces

 

A survey conducted by The Block Research has found that the go-to cryptocurrency on darknet marketplaces is still the flagship cryptocurrency bitcoin, for both payments and withdrawals. Steven Zheng, a researcher with the firm, found through a survey of 49% darknet markets that 98% support bitcoin.

Monero, a privacy-centric cryptocurrency, is used 45% of the markets, while litecoin and bitcoin cash saw 29%, and 12% of the markets support them, respectively. Bitcoin is likely still the favorite cryptocurrency because of the use of transaction mixers, which help darknet market users remain anonymous.

In a survey made last year the firm found similar results, although at the time Ethereum’s ether was the third most used cryptoasset on darknet marketplaces.

 
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German Authorities Seize $30 Million in BTC and BCH From Movie Piracy Site

 

German authorities have seized over €25 million ($29.6 million) worth of bitcoin and bitcoin cash from the alleged programmer of a movie piracy website called movie2k.to.

The movie piracy website had reportedly been running for five years, and in that time is said to have distributed over 880,000 copes of films. It had two main operators who, together with accomplices, ran the website up until the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) filed a lawsuit to block access to the website in a U.K. court.

The website’s operators have now been charged with running the illegal movie piracy service. One of its administrators has been in police custody while the other one is still on the run. The administrator under policy custody reportedly got over 22,000 BTC from advertising and subscription fees made on movie2k.to, and mostly used his cryptoassets to buy properties via a real estate firm in Berlin.

The Dresden Public Prosecutor’s Office, supported by the State Criminal Police Office in Saxony and the Leipzig Tax Investigation Department, has announced he forfeited his remaining near $30 million worth of BTC and BCH and is now cooperating with authorities.

 
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