EOS block producers froze seven accounts that were compromised through a phishing scam, sparking a constitutional crisis for EOS governance. This adds to the inconvenience that the blockchain has had to launch the mainnet completely.
The problem arose when complaints came that several accounts had been victims of phishing. A group of block producers was accused of abusing their authority by freezing seven accounts affected by the incident after the EOS Core Arbitration Forum refused to issue a decision on the case. So these producers made the decision themselves and decided to intervene the accounts.
EOS42, one of the 21 block producers, declared that after the election of the same, a large number of reports came from the tokens' holders who claimed "that their private keys were not valid and did not coincide with the assigned addresses". This implies a security breach that puts at risk 15 million dollars in EOS tokens.
The block producers decided to take the matter to the EOS Core Arbitration Forum (ECAF), a group that functions as a kind of judicial branch in the EOS block chain.
EOS New York, another of the 21 block producers, said in a statement:
"We initially received a preliminary notice from ECAF that they were likely to issue an emergency order to freeze certain accounts affected by the scams."
However, EOS New York alleges that these block producers were subsequently informed that the forum would not issue such a mandate. Subsequently, ECAF said that it did not believe that the provisional constitution gave it sufficient authority to make such a decision.
With an ECAF without willingness to take action on the matter, the producers voted unanimously to freeze seven accounts compromised by the incident.
EOS42 stated :
"On the one hand, we could protect the holders of the tokens, but on the other, it seems a dramatic step beyond our role in the constitution and agreement of BP, which is the executor of arbitration decisions only."
This measure was criticized by many users of the network and despite the reaction and that the producers abused their authority, EOS42 defended the action and indicated that they would be willing to do it again, at least until the permanent constitution of EOS was finiquite. .
Further on they stated that :
"In case more potentially compromised accounts are unblocked during this period before the constitution is ratified, we will consider and freeze them."
According to ETHNews, it is likely that these actions are not necessary. Yesterday, EOS New York demanded the ECAF to issue a verdict before 13:00 UTC on June 19, threatening to unfreeze the accounts if the forum did not, since the intervention "can not be applied without a unanimous consensus of the 21 main producers of block ".
It seems that the threat achieved its objective since ECAF ordered the indefinite freezing of the accounts, and it will continue until the origin of the incident is identified and a way is found to avoid a recurrence in the future.
Meanwhile, the EOS mainnet is still not totally online, and as long as these details are not solved, it is difficult to know when the blockchain will be functioning in its entirety.