Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Beginner - What Is Race Attack in blockchain? and Limitations/disadvantages of Blockchain

What Is Race Attack in blockchain?

Race attack in blockchain is basically what happens in double spending. When a highly technical bad actor tries to manipulate the system by performing two transactions and sending the same coin at the same time. To explain how this happens, a user sends the same coin twice by performing two transactions, let’s say TransactionA and TransactionB.

Both transactions will sit in the unconfirmed transactions pool until it is confirmed on the blockchain. Since the same coin was sent at the same time, there is a possibility that both TransactionA and TransactionB would leave the pool of unconfirmed transactions simultanously and there will be two branches of the blockchain with each of the transactions, and a race will kick off.

Limitations/disadvantages of Blockchain

Even though blockchain technology has proven to have a lot of benefits, there are also some limitations. Some of the limitations of blockchain technology are;

• High power/energy consumption - is one of the limitations of a lot of proof of work blockchains like bitcoin, ethereum etc. Mining on proof of work blockchains consumes a lot of power and energy which has its effects. Yes, there are newer blockchains that utilize proof of stake that is more energy efficient, bitcoin is still the number 1 and most popular blockchain. Also, bitcoin, ethereum and a lot of other proof of work blockchains are still the most popular types of blockchains which increases high energy and power consumption.

• A bit technical - This is another limitation of blockchain because it can a bit technical for an average person to understand how it works. A lot of persons find it difficult to understand how blockchain works which slows down adoption.

• Increase in scam/fraud transactions - This is one of the major disadvantages of blockchain. Because transactions on the blockchain cannot be traced, it has increased the level of scam/fraud as bad actors are taking advantages of the anonymity of blockchain to perform scam and fraud transactions.

• Scalability issues - This is another limitation of blockchain. We have seen blockchain like ethereum suffering from scalability issues and slow transactions. This has become a problem as more and more people are making use of ethereum blockchain. With scalability becoming an issue, it has slowed down adoption as many people cannot deal with slow transaction times.

• Errors cannot be erased - Any error in any transaction recorded on the blockchain cannot be reversed as the blockchain is immutable. This can be an issue when a mistake is made and is already recorded on the blockchain, there is no way to erase that mistake.

• 51% attack - This is another disadvantage of blockchain. Since blockchain is controlled by miners who secure the network, there is a possibility of 51% attack which basically means that 51% of the malicious miners will plan and take control of the network since they are now the majority.

Blockchain has proven to be very powerful and beneficial ever since it was created. We have seen the massive rise and growth of blockchain technology as it continues to gain adoption all over the world. A blockchain is basically a digital immutable and distributed ledger that processes, records and stores data through decentralization. A blockchain is immutable which means that data stored cannot be altered by anyone. The blockchain data are stored in encrypted blocks in a chain that are chronologically connected. However, even though blockchain has a lot of benefits, it has shown to not be the perfect solution as it also has its own limitations and disadvantages. Nevertheless, we are still in the early days of blockchain technology as more and more development continues to be done, improved versions will be created as blockchain technology continues to grow and gain adoption.