Metronome Update — January 2019

January 2019 saw the start of a new, and already eventful, year. The Metronome team has updates to share along with commentary on last month’s Ethereum Classic attack.

Ethereum Classic gets attacked, and our next steps

On January 5, 2019 the Ethereum Classic network was hit with a 51% attack where the attackers were able to rent the hashpower necessary to control the network. The intentions were, it seems, to double-spend ETC tokens — selling them to an exchange.

The Ethereum Classic network has been a target chain for Metronome porting and, obviously, such an event raises questions for the MET tokens that reside on networks prone to 51% attacks. The team has put in considerable effort in developing/auditing these contracts for deployment on Ethereum Classic and the Validator Network that will secure the transactions between chains.

So will Metronome deploy these contracts on the Ethereum Classic network?

After careful consideration and feedback from community members, the team has decided to continue with its planned Q1 deployment of Metronome contracts on the Ethereum Classic network. Realizing this may raise questions for some, the team wanted to explain its reasoning.

Watching the situation unfold over the course of a few weeks — and noting Ethereum Classic’s resilience in both market-cap and ability to maintain its hashrate post-attack — the team is confident enough in the chain to deploy contracts. The additional security in continued institutional incentive to stabilize the network has helped alleviate some of the team’s concerns.

However, the team urges MET owners to carefully consider where they keep their MET at all times. Put simply, should any owner find any network with deployed Metronome contracts misaligned with their security needs and risk tolerances, then they should not store their MET on that chain. As with any cryptocurrency, each owner has an individual responsibility to themselves.

What would have happened if Ethereum Classic contracts were already deployed?

All transactions on an attacked chain are just as vulnerable to the attack as anything else, however it is worth considering a few things. The primary economic incentive for attacking a network is to go after the most profitable tokens — which is usually the underlying token itself (in this case ETC). Additionally, the victims of 51% attacks are usually exchanges.

The team is moving forward with the planned Ethereum Classic deployment. However once contracts are deployed, owners can move their MET anytime they wish (or not) based off their needs.

Ultimately, such an attack has proven the need for chain portability.

Community engagement page

The community engagement page has launched on the Metronome website — think of it as a meetup in a box, or a community building toolkit. Community members are encouraged to peruse the resources available to them there. The main goal of this page is to provide resources so that any community member can more easily spread awareness about Metronome, via documents, logos, guides, and ready-to-go presentation slides.

This page is the first in a few pages geared toward greater community involvement in expanding Metronome — updates and more content to these pages to come.

Community volunteers continue coming forward to help build Metronome in their areas and act as moderators and admins of social channels.

Binance conference

Metronome team members shared a space in Bloq’s private room during the recent Binance conference so they could meet more community members and discuss Metronome. Jeff Garzik, Metronome’s chief designer, took a few photos with the banner and Metronome’s project lead, Jordan Kruger.

Jeff was also able to discuss Metronome and a few new BloqLabs projects on the Binance stage itself. There, he outlined the motivations and vision for Metronome as a built-to-last cryptocurrency while also discussing how the contracts work with one another at a high level. Overall, the team was happy to meet and speak with Metronome community members.

Conclusion

The Metronome team is still on track to deploy Metronome contracts on Ethereum Classic in Q1 2019. The community now has additional resources available to them to help spread Metronome awareness. The Binance conference was an excellent opportunity to speak to community members and invite even more people to join us — and we are looking for more opportunities to continue to do the same.

More to come,

-The Metronome Team