Ethereum Devs Close EIP-1559 Loophole That Could Have Overwhelmed Blockchain

Ethereum developers quickly patched up EIP-1559 a month and a half before it's set to go live. Scheduled for mid-July, EIP-1559 burns some ETH spent on processing transactions instead of giving it all to miners, as is currently the case. The proposal aims to reduce the volatility of Ethereum’s transaction fee.

Under EIP-1559, users can “tip” miners and the Ethereum network to speed up transactions. To do this, they specify the maximum amount they are willing to pay. Martin Holst Swende, an Ethereum core developer from Sweden, worked out on Thursday that EIP-1559 placed no limit on the maximum amount a user could pay to speed up transactions.

An attacker could thus insert an absurdly high number to overwhelm the network, even if they didn’t have the funds to pay for the tip.