Bitcoin Forum

they would easily be able to do that,

it costs just 6 billion to destroy bitcoin with a 51% attack

this is something a commited developed country easily could affort,

however the developed countries promote and support cryptocurrency as cryptocurrencies are benefiting them more than the developing countries, so there is a division in the united nations consil, which prevents state sponsored 51% attacking as being legal.

however if there is an intelligent bussinesman who lends a ton of money to create this hashpower as some form of cyberweapon of a state, this could truly exist.

and what makes it worse this cyber weapon would then be able to eat more and more as each destroyed cryptocurrency would make the attacker even richer, which he can invest to have even more hashpower

regards

51% attack will not make it richer ... who want buy that coin after the attack is performed ?

He will never get back the investment he put on that attack.

Notice that a simple hard fork by the community will restore everything and allhis efforts will be nulled.

Source for the 6 billion ?

Additionally one can not 'destroy' bitcoin by maintaining 51% of the hashrate for a short timespan.




Or they could just easily ban the posession/usage/trading of cryptocurrencies. Would cost them way less.
Additionally it would need a hardware manufacturer to produce all the ASIC's needed to obtain such a big % of the hashrate.




If this businessman were 'intelligent', he wouldn't 'invest' in tons of mining hardware just to NOT MAKE PROFIT with it.
If you own enough ASICS to have a big % of the total hashrate, you earn WAY MORE when simply mining.




Thats not how it works.
ASIC's do only work for ONE algorithm. After 'destroying' bitcoin, the whole hardware would be useless and worth almost nothing anymore.
This doesn't make the attacker richer.. an attacker would effectively throw money away.



Please stop posting misleading information. All of your 'facts' are simply wrong and illogical.

First of all there's several reasons why a majority attack isn't viable, and quite simply isn't worth it. I'm not sure where you've got the 6 billion figure from, and I haven't done any math to support or go against that claim. So, I'll just ignore it for now.

For a 51% attack to be effective a majority attack would have to be maintained constantly to be effective.  Not only that but, several people wanting to protect Bitcoin would likely increase their computing power to protect from a majority attack whether this be 'normal' miners or other countries which support the movement of Bitcoin. For example, there's multiple pools which normal users could band together to reduce the computing power of the malicious attacker. This could be a community driven effort which the majority of worth well users would contribute to one way or another. Whether that's funding or actually providing their computing power.

A 51% attack isn't that effective, and there's probably better ways to go about 'attacking' the Bitcoin network.

51% destroyes its trust massively though and all those constand fix and foxes, will make people be pissed of and return to POS systems

Interesting premise however this does not address the issue of lack of liquidity and any given Market, a 51% attack would be possible if it was executed over a large period of time but it's also possible that individual networks would become wise to State action, if this is not the case and an individual cryptocurrency fails to be vigilant and protect their Network it's simply a case of needing to hard Fork and reverse the Damage Done

Any amount spent to rent hashrate cannot sustain an attack indefinitely. The network heals and private keys were never destroyed. Cryptocurrency is like an endospore (https://gist.github.com/shelby3/c192cedaed52ef11ef97acb239dc5986#cryptocurrency-is-unkillable-analogous-to-an-endospore). It can't be destroyed, except maybe by a quantum computer (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4266048.40#msg39054129) or other break in the cryptography.

technology progresses rich power and states stay, if they want they can indefinately break bitcoin

I believe the 51%attack will happen to bitcoin because if it want to happen it would have happen before now cause alot of wealthy people you cant imagine are involve in bitcoin. Meanwhile, this one of job of this community and other bitcoin forum to watch over and monitor the bitcoin system.

jes i am currently wirting an article about the natural drive for monopolisation which exists in societies observable in board game like "monopoly" but also described in real life by for example karl marx, will also exist within cryptocurrencies and the distribution of hashpower,

we will sooner or later have a huge monster in our midsts that first feeded on the smal coins, and then grew reinvested and then feeded on the big coins, the entire economy then will basically live of the mercy of that association hashpower miners that runs the huge hashpower, similar like the banking cartel, plus it will also be a centre of bitcoin.

i seriously think POW is damn doomed.

Why would they "get rid of" it? The smart ones will adapt and be ahead of the game (already are). I dont think the notion of it being attacked by political powers will endure. Power is easily swayed by the opinions of the many influence the few. How many times do you see politicians change hardcore opinions based on their "pre-concieved" base?

It will be more of them trying to exercise their power over crypto then kill it. At least, in my opinion, that's what the intelligent ones will do.

Refer to Bitcoin Jesus's video below. He says it quite well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncPyMUfNyVM

There is no way that a government gets hold of and installs millions of antminers, powers them and manages to sustain the attack. Think of the logistics behind it. Consider how much electricity they will need, they will probably need to power down their entire country, and after all that they can just do one double spend.

thats a great post, however there is also non governmental threats, and so called de facto centralisation, if big miner pools associate themselves.

Bitcoin is designed in a way that ensures that the actors that could theoretically
harm the network are heavily incentivized to actually play by the rules.

You claim that a potential problem lies in the possibility that the big mining
pools "associate themselves". Why would the miners collude to harm Bitcoin?
If they seriously damage the trust in Bitcoin they lower the profits for future mining
and also lower the value of their infrastructure and their hardware.
Besides, a successful attack on Bitcoin would seriously damage the trust in
all cryptocurrencies. It´s not like they could just use their miners to mine
another cryptocurrency after an attack on Bitcoin.

These attack scenarios are relevant for small PoW coins (see the recent attacks
on Bitcoin Gold, Monacoin or Verge), but Bitcoin is basically
immune to this particular threat.

Well let's say Antpool wants to be malicous.  How long do you think it'l take for that to get noticed and word to spread? The pool is centralized, but remember it is made up by thousands of individual miners. They will instantly leave the pool and mine elsewhere.

This has happened in the past when one of the major pools were approaching 50% hashrate. Word spread fast and people left the pool. All individual miners will act to protect the network even within one pool. If a pool attempts an attack they will probably fail to get sufficient hashrate, and will lose all their miners before the attack can even really happen.

One would think this is one of the key reasons that they’re unlikely to short the token and attack, unlike proof-of-stake. However, the miners concoct all sorts of drama (e.g. block size forks) in order to drive the prices down and up like a yoyo, because they profit on the swings in price and they mine multiple tokens and arbitrage between them. Also the lowest cost miners can use price swings to squeeze the marginal miners. The capitalists who own the 12/14nm ASIC foundaries decide who gets the most efficient ASICs first.

The mining cartel doesn't want to outright double-spend or break the protocol yet, because they're still nurturing this 666 system they’re hoisting on us (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4416188.msg39515634#msg39515634). Yet I am not in some fantasyland dream where I think they're not manipulating on both the down and upside.

Sorry for the depressing thoughts. I like realism, not fantasies.

Many countries do not know bitcoin. In the next few years they will regret it  :-[

I dont think the u.s will do this even if it is thrue that they ar3 capable of doing this. Not unless bitcoin poses a threat to their national security. And so far I can see that bitcoin is actually helping boost the economies of those countries so accepted it. It fucoses more on the business and fluidity of transactions in any person's daily activities. It helps makes life or living better and faster and more convenient so i dont see a any reason that the u.s would get rid of crypto.

I don't think that it would be possible to destroy bitcoin by having 51 percent hash power.Even if it's possible,no nation would be coming forward to invest such a huge amount which could not be recovered back.

I think countries will not want to do that, because it's potential

in is all in your head thinking such attacks are possible and that is because of your lack of understanding of bitcoin.
first of all it will take a lot more than just $6 billion to 51% attack bitcoin not to mention that you would have to add hashrate to the current existing hashrate effectively increasing it by a lot which makes the total hashrate and 51% of it a lot more than it currently is and the cost will increase by it also.
no nation in the world is going to dedicate such huge amounts of funds to attack something they can not even destroy which brings us to secondly.

secondly 51% attack is not going to destroy bitcoin! it is so easy to fight it. the most extreme solution is to simply switch algorithm. after all an extreme $10-$20 billion attack needs extreme fight backs. in short in your theory a nation wastes a HUGE amount of money to attack bitcoin for 1 day tops and cause disturbance for a short amount of time and then  all their efforts will become obsolete in 24 hours.

We have had a close encounter with a 51% attack before, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghash.io and how miners quickly shifted pools to prevent this from happening. The same thing will happen, when a government funded attack like this happens.

Let's say they are successful, then they must sustain this attack for it to be affective.  ::) This news will then trigger a shift of mining power to other Alt coins and also investment capital moving to these coins. <A lot of these coins do not rely on POW>  ;)

These governments will have to fight against the combined power of 1000s of different Alt coins and mining technologies.  ;D

I doubt that a successful 51% attack would lead to money moving from BTC to non-PoW alts.
If there really should be such an attack (double spendings, rewriting blockchain, ..) the most probable outcome (in my eyes) would be that the whole crypto market would suffer heavily.

It doesn't matter if such an attack happens on bcash (or any other PoW coin). But if it would happen to bitcoin, the price would probably dump pretty hard.
Since this would lead to a heavy monetary loss for the miners (especially bitmain), i doubt that this will happen to btc.

If the states really would like to get rid of crypto conversions, then everything would have been over for a long time, but as long as there is a chance to beat the bitcoins and invest money in other crypto projects like Socratus

the problem with non-PoW altcoins is that they are usually more flawed than PoW coins. for instance take PoS coins. they are literary the "Rich get Richer" schemes.
in PoW you have to literary work for new coins but in PoS you just have to be rich to become richer just by having coins.

I did not intend to give the impression better alternatives to PoW would exist.
Other consensus algorithms do definitely have flaws, PoW doesn't have.

But to be fair, regarding the wealth needed to generate more wealth it doesn't differ much.
Whether one casual guy will be buying 2 graphic cards compared to 200 asics, doesn't matter much from a casual guy staking 500$ compared to 50.000$ being staked.

It is basically pure money in PoS and hardware+electricity in PoW.

Its not just bitcoin that the states would have to get rid of, there are more than a thousand of tokens that are listed on coinmarketcap. If they are going to attack each, it would be pointless in the end when forking can just be done by anyone. Have you noticed how many times bitcoin had been forked? Even if they destroy half of the thousands, there will always coins that will come out.

I do not think that the states are really interested to get rid from crypto currencies. They know the importance of fiat currency and therefore they want to give some deal, and may be thinking about to legalize it just like Japan and some other currencies, but they may be measuring and analyzing the good and bad aspects of crypto currencies.

I don't think that the national government will oppose cryptocurrencies. They can't object to this movement. They will accept cryptocurrencies.

I think you and many here don't understand or maybe I do not understand. any coin you can bring down and depreciate when you have 51% or more of all coins. Accordingly, as I understand it, 6 billion is not such a large amount, which is not large and strong States.

if it happens maybe every country will be a past that only rely on currency alone, there is no longer mutual benefit between currency and Cryptocurrency. but I think that's not possible because cryptocurrency is mutually beneficial for every country that receives it.

Attackers are the most unpleasant, which can be in any field, but this can and should be fought.

I truly believe that 50% foray will happen to bitcoin. Because if it want to happen, it would have happen before now. Because a lot of property people you can't conceive are environ in bitcoin. Meanwhile, this one of job of this denomination and other bitcoin forum to watch over and monitor the bitcoin custom.

i think it will not be necessary to attack and destroy bitcoin, bitcoin will ultimately destroy itself due to its unability to fix issues. its just a propaganda coin along with many other cryptocurrencies.

why doesnt anyone use certified paper money called papercoin, or zertificated dollar?

because empty money loses its trust sooner or later.

if you truly believed that then you wouldn't have been here on a bitcoin forum, on a bitcoin board constantly talking about bitcoin.
I really believe Ethereum is a pure shitcoin, you don't see me go on an ethereum forum like forum.ethereum.org waste my time creating an account and waste my time talking about it constantly! there is nothing in it for me.

i missed a word "not" in my last post,

ohm jes i doubt on bitcoins long term ability to survive and go on.

same with many other coins,

just look at zcash or dash, they lost 85% or bicoin gold which lost 92% of its value when it hyped, the market disintegrated gets more and more diverse and confusing.

there might even be a new dynamic, of the creation of new markets and indexation of new markets, as there is no rule of law that defines a market.

this forum for now is used also as a project development plattform, this might also soon move somewhere else.

regards

the government will sure not destroy crypto. they would the benefits they can get from cryptos

No country in the world will spend such huge amounts of money to attack something they can not even destroy. It is easy to resist it. After all, $ 20- $ 20 billion worth of extreme attacks need extreme support. The same thing will happen when a government-sponsored attack like this happens. This news will then trigger a shift of mining power to other Alt coins and also capital moves to those coins. These governments will have to fight against the combined power of 1000 Alt coins and various mining technologies. If the states really want to remove the encryption switch, then everything will end for a long time, but as long as there is a chance to beat the bitcoin and invest money into other cryptographic projects like Socratus . If they would attack each other, then it would be useless to just do it to anyone. Even if they destroy half of thousands, there will always be coins going out.

preferably, those of us who have entered the crypto world for a long time, or are still new, must be prepared for this. bitcoin and other crypto have been around since 9 years ago, and there is no country that really provides regulation on bitcoin and we really have to be prepared for the consequences if bitcoin is lost. it will not affect the economy globally, but the loss of crypto will make some people lose their investment assets to get profit.

Why would any person, country or organisation want to do this? They have nothing to gain by it, so while it may be possible to acquire 51% of the Bitcoins then what? If they want to destroy Bitcoin then there are much cheaper and easier ways to do so-such as spreading false information about it's imminent collapse, use on the dark web to support terrorists and organised crime etc. 

If countries really want to remove electronic money, it will have a major impact on the world economy. Corporations, companies that invest in electronic money will go bankrupt. Many will be unemployed and the world currency system will be overturned.

Why would they "destroy" cryptocurrency? Countries would be burning their resource for nothing that way. Besides, there an easier way to destroy it. Simply ban any activities related to cryptocurrency. I'm sure the number of users, hashrate, and price would drop drastically.

What??? How does each destroyed crypto make them richer? You're being absolutely nonsense here.

again going back to the basics of bitcoin and blockchain technology and one of it is that bitcoin cannot be destroyed it is distributed, so no matter how much money you use or how powerful you are you just cant destroy it!