On Tuesday, the biggest Bitcoin transaction ever made was loaded on to the blockchain, the publicly viewable ledger that records every instance of the cryptocurrency changing hands. It was 999 kilobytes in size, taking up an entire packet of transaction data, or "block," and when it went out, a user in the Bitcoin developer chatroom remarked, "RIP Bitcoin."

We know who did it: a major Chinese mining pool—a group of Bitcoin miners who have pooled their resources in order to confirm blocks faster for a reward—known as F2Pool. We also know why. Somebody, perhaps numerous people, sent thousands upon thousands of tiny Bitcoin transactions across the network, referred to as "dust," in an attack likely meant to clog up the pipes and potentially even break the Bitcoin system. At least, for a while.

Although F2Pool was initially suspected of launching the attack, it later became clear that the pool's members had taken it upon themselves to mine a massive block as a way to gather up all the dust and clear the spam.

"This could be discrediting the Chinese miners' opinions"

What we don't know is who initiated the spam, or why. The attack is still ongoing, and currently tens of thousands of Bitcoin transactions are languishing, waiting to be loaded on to the blockchain, as miners struggle to keep up with the onslaught of junk transactions.

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