Time Warp Attack
Security● Common
An attack exploiting the difficulty adjustment algorithm by manipulating block timestamps. Attacker alternates between past-dated and future-dated blocks to drastically reduce difficulty while maintaining apparent block times.
Technical Notes
Difficulty adjusts based on first and last block timestamps in 2016-block period. Attack: set last block timestamp = first block timestamp (same 'elapsed time', but 2016 blocks mined faster). Requires >50% hashrate. Fix proposed in Consensus Cleanup.
Metadata
Visibility: Public
Created:1/3/2026by System