Chainalysis, a company that apparently provides real time transaction information from the blockchain to financial institutions, has been accused of launching a Sybil attack on bitcoin network.
The company reportedly created 250 false nodes to elicit information about the origin of transactions. These false nodes led to disruption of services and also risked the privacy of bitcoin users. They don't store or give out blocks when asked for causing slowdowns by delaying other connecting nodes, said Wladimir van der Laan, one of the Bitcoin Core developers.
Chainalysis CEO, Michael Gronager, in response to the accusations, described the partial Sybil attack as unintentional. He said that the false nodes were created to get location information for a blog post on international bitcoin transfers and that they took precautions to prevent the nodes from causing any damage to core bitcoin network.
Chainalysis is now drawing heat and the bitcoin ecosystem is prepared to question its services, its aftermath on anonymity of users and security of bitcoin network.
