Bitcoin spinoff Bitcoin Gold has suffered two so-called 51% attacks, but in a surprising twist its price has actually surged since then.

A 51% attack is one attempted by a group of miners controlling more than 50 percent of a given cryptocurrency’s mining hash rate, a measure of how much computing power the cryptocurrency network is consuming in order to be continuously operational.

Once they gain control, the attackers can prevent new transactions from gaining confirmation. That in turn allows them both to halt payments among some or all users and to reverse transactions that were completed while they were in control, meaning that they can “double-spend” coins.

The 51% attacks against Bitcoin Gold occurred Jan. 23 and 24, with the equivalent of $19,000 and $53,000 double-spent during the attacks.

The cost of each attack is estimated to have been $1,200 based on market prices, showing a high benefit ratio given the low costs relative to the gains in each attack. That assumes, however, that those behind the 51% attack were able to extract the double-spend from the Bitcoin Gold blockchain.

Usually, such attacks result in a loss of confidence in a cryptocurrency, resulting in a price plunge and low activity but the opposite occurred here. Bitcoin Gold has surged as much as 17% since the attacks, with its price up 4% in the last 24 hours.

“A price surge at a time when the underlying blockchain network is under attack raises questions regarding the fundamentals behind BTG and whether the cryptocurrency is not only be used for a pump-and-dump scheme,” Coinfomania wrote today. A common guess, it added, is that manipulators or other potential beneficiaries are buying up large sums of the cryptocurrency to inflate its price.

This isn’t the first time Bitcoin Gold has faced a 51% attack. The then-equivalent of $18 million was stolen in an attack in May 2018 that resulted in Bitcoin Gold being delisted from the Bittrex Exchange.

The increase in Bitcoin Gold’s price, the possible pump-and-dump scheme aside, may have been in part the result of the overall buoyancy in the cryptocurrency markets. Bitcoin itself is up 5% in the last 24 hours, to its highest level in nearly two weeks.

Image: Bitcoin Gold