(BlockBar) AnChain.AI released a report showing that the equivalent of $6 million in transaction volume was driven by rampant, malicious bot activity on Dapps in the first quarter of 2019. AnChain is a blockchain APT hacker group that provides AI-powered blockchain ecosystem security. AnChain has 15 employees and is backed by Amino Capital, a Palo Alto VC firm.
According to the report, 75 percent of total transactions and 51 percent of unique accounts were driven by non-human accounts. According to the CEO of AnChain Victor Fang, bot activity threatens the integrity of the blockchain industry. According to him transaction volume and daily volume are also among the most frequently called-upon metrics for determining technological validity, and precisely what is being faked.
In the study AnChain identified five Ethereum addresses behind an extremely sophisticated attack that employed 50,000 self-destructible malicious bots to steal $4 million over two weeks. The study suggests that bot activity is not a bug but a feature of decentralized blockchains. “The decentralized nature makes blockchains even harder to defend than cloud systems,” according to Fang. Pseudonymous transactions “leave the door open to bots going undetected for extended periods of time.”
But this does not at all mean that the bots are only an issue for blockchains. According to the report which cites a study it is shown that almost 40% of all Internet traffic in 2018 alone was also bot driven. Fang suggests that eventually blockchains need more accountability be it from a decentralized action or centralized authority. The study has also found that the most active Dapp, EOS has only a small percentage of bot activity, although these Dapp and EOS represent $480 million in weekly transaction volume.
It is worth paying attention that account for substantial amount of suspicious transactions is the lagging Dapps. The second most popular Dapp exhibited the most bots which, according to the study, was around 1,900 out of the platforms 4,500 unique users. Fang asserted that for an industry that is still developing, the untrustworthy platforms will have long-term negative consequences. The company suggests developers should institute automated quality assurance tests on their platforms.
Mayan MV is a passionate writer and cryptocurrency enthusiast. He currently serves as marketing strategist and contributor at BlockBar, based in Singapore. Mayan has started his career in blockchain technology about five years ago, and he has also written over a hundred articles that span across various fields.
