Bitcoiner claims to have crashed 70% of Dogecoin network using old laptop

December 12, 2024

An El Salvador-based Bitcoin enthusiast recently made waves in the crypto world by claiming to have taken down 70% of the Dogecoin network using just an old laptop and a publicly available exploit.

Andreas Kohl, a Bitcoin sidechain developer, shared screenshots showing that he crashed 442 of Dogecoin’s nodes, almost 69% of the entire network, using an old Thinkpad laptop and a vulnerability known as ‘DogeReaper.’

The ‘DogeReaper’ exploit allows anyone to remotely crash a Dogecoin node. This vulnerability was made public on December 4 by the Department Of DOGE Efficiency, not to be confused with Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.

Kohl boasted on social media about successfully crashing the majority of the Dogecoin network. The vulnerability was initially discovered by “Bitcoin Monk” Tobias Ruck and software developer Roqqit. They shared the information discreetly with miners and crypto exchanges, but unfortunately, most nodes did not update to the patched version in time, resulting in the network being exploited.

According to the Doge Efficiency account, a malicious actor could have stopped the Dogecoin network for several days, leading to no transactions or blocks, ultimately causing the price of DOGE to plummet towards zero.

Despite the severity of the Dogecoin node exploit, Coinbase considered the risk to be low and informative. However, there is uncertainty about whether Coinbase updated to the non-vulnerable version of Dogecoin, as confirmed by Roqqit.

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