F2Pool co-founder responds to allegations it's cheating the Ethereum POW system

cointelegraph.com:

F2Pool co-founder Chun Wang has responded to allegations that his mining pool has been manipulating Ethereum block timestamps to “obtain consistently higher mining rewards."

The allegations came from an Aug. 5 paper from researchers at The Hebrew University, claiming the mining pool has been engaging in a "consensus-level" attack on Ethereum over the last two years to gain an edge over "honest" miners.  

However, Wang on Twitter responded by saying that “we respect the *consensus* as is”, implying that intentionally exploiting the system's rules doesn’t necessarily mean that rules have been broken.

We respect the *consensus* as is. If you don’t like the consensus, convince @TimBeiko to send me another Announcement and change it. https://t.co/Lmw2INzOzg

Earlier this week, the researchers shared what they claim has been the first proof of a “consensus-level attack” on Ethereum, in which miners such as F2Pool have found a way to manipulate block timestamps to consistently get higher mining rewards compared to mining “honestly.”

The research paper was penned by cryptocurrency lecturer Aviv Yaish, software algorithm developer Gilad Stern, and computer scientist Aviv Zohar, alleging that Ethereum mining pool F2Pool has been one of the miners that have been using this timestamp manipulation strategy.

“Although most mining pools produce relatively inconspicuous-looking blocks, F2Pool blatantly disregards the rules and uses false timestamps for its blocks,” said Yaish, adding that the mining pool has been executing the attack over the last two years.

Wang also appeared to own up to evidence presented by Yaish, indicating that the timestamp manipulation was being done intentionally. 

I can’t stop appreciate this elegant implementation