Bitcoin Forum

Other => Beginners & Help => Topic started by: Bru on April 21, 2014, 07:05:52 PM



Title: How likely is a 51% atack in the future ?
Post by: Bru on April 21, 2014, 07:05:52 PM
I just watched https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bi2thGzzNSs. This guy concludes that someone who is an employee of ASIC producers or someone who own a CHIP factory could get the hardware for a 51% atack on Bitcoin for only 20 mil $. The price is not really important, cause even 200 mil, or 1 Billion is nothing for something/someone very big like a gov or the banking industry.

I made some math (i'm using short scale, don't bash me) :
The total money on earth (M3) is around 75 trillion $ = 75 000 Billion $ (according to the internets)
Bitcoin market capitalization is at this moment ~ 6 270 000 000 $ = 6,27 Billion $ , let's make it 7 B
7 B / 75 000 B = ~0.0001
This means that bitcoin constitutes 0.01% of the world's money (M3) So at this time.. bitcoin is a drop in the ocean.
Who holds most of this money ? The banks
What will happen in the future if bitcoin is widely adopted and constitutes 0.1% or even 1% or think big : 50% of all money? The fiat would lose a lot of value, and BTC will become a bank's worst enemy. The banking industry has *a lot* of money , they spend billions on fines and they don't even care, they spend tens of millions in bribes to gain some market share in some shitty country.. Wouldn't they, if they felt threaten by Bitcoin, do anything to close it down ? We have no fighting chance. And of course, a 51% is one of the many things they could do, but it looks the easiest.

Is there a way to protect bitcoin from a 51% attack ?
What other threats do you think lays ahead in our journey ?


Title: Re: How likely is a 51% atack in the future ?
Post by: apsvinet on April 21, 2014, 09:28:24 PM
Nobody can say, I would guess it's not very likely due to the costs and that it's a damn process to complete.