๐จ Ever heard of a replay attack? Let me tell you about a crazy incident that happened to someone in the crypto space โ a lesson we all need to learn! ๐จ
After 10 years, this person finally remembered the password to their old Bitcoin wallet. Imagine the excitement! ๐ Since they held BTC for so long, they also owned its forks โ Bitcoin Cash ($BCH ) and eCash ($XEC ). Naturally, they wanted to consolidate everything into a multi-platform wallet.
So, they sent their XEC from Electrum ABC to Binance. Everything seemed normalโฆ until 10 minutes later, when they opened their Electron Cash wallet and saw that their BCH balance was gone! ๐ฑ๐ธ
Hereโs what happened:
๐ When a blockchain undergoes a hard fork (like Bitcoin splitting into Bitcoin Cash), both chains share the same transaction history up to the split.
๐ If proper replay protection isnโt implemented, transactions valid on one chain can be replayed on the other chain. ๐
๐ In this case, when they sent XEC, the exact same transactionโsame amount, same fee, same hashโwas broadcasted on the BCH network, draining their BCH to an unintended address.
They reached out to #binancesupport, but unfortunately, the recipient address wasnโt under Binanceโs control. So, the funds were gone. Thankfully, it was only a small amount, but the emotional hit of losing that BCH โ their first-ever crypto โ stung hard. ๐
๐ Moral of the story: Always be aware of replay attacks when dealing with blockchain forks! Protect your assets, and donโt assume a transaction on one chain is isolated from another.
