EOS Freezes Seven Accounts Following Mainnet Snafu

EOS, an altcoin blockchain that was halted by a bug that prevented transactions two days after going live, has frozen seven EOS accounts that were subject to a phishing scam, according to a blog on a site called EOS42 on Steemit.

Developers discovered the bug that caused the mainnet to pause unexpectedly on June 16 and noted on the Telegram channel that Block.one, the EOS creator, was working on a software patch. The block producers held a conference call to discuss the problem, then disabled their nodes and backed up data to protect network history would be lost.

Problem Raises Concern

The block producers updated users about the problem, but the fact that the bug was being fixed over a conference call supports the arguments of those who say EOS is not sufficiently decentralized.

Emin Gun Sirer, a Cornell professor and a blockchain researcher, tweeted that EOS would cause a major cryptocurrency exchange hack in the next calendar year. EOS launched last week after raising more than $4 billion in a crowdsale.

Reaction on Twitter to the freezing of seven compromised accounts was mixed.

One tweeter noted that if the block producers had not frozen the seven accounts, thieves could have moved the funds and gotten away with robbery. This tweeter called it a fair and transparent way of dealing with a complex issue. The constitution will be voted on soon.

Another tweeter noted, however, that the stakeholders did not elect any arbitrators, and that the action they took is illegal.

Others called the action madness.

EOS Offers Stakeholders Help

A blog on a website called EOS Emergency has offered a process by which stakeholders can confirm whether their EOS private key was compromised. It states that the stakeholder can provide confirmation they are the proper owner of the EOS account and give consent to unfreeze it.

According to EOS42, any EOS accounts compromised through phishing can be unlocked. EOS42 is an EOS block producer candidate based in London. The blog noted that the EOS Core Arbitration Forum (ECAF) filed a submission, and block producers were awaiting a ruling on the status of the seven frozen accounts.