Bitcoin Forum

Bitcoin is so vulnerable to a 51% attack. Ghash supposedly has 45% of hashing power, but what about the Unknown category? I am not willing to risk all my bitcoins because of a 51% attack.. I am converting to litecoin, which is being pumped now btw..

This article below explains what a 51% attack is and how you can prevent it.

http://www.btcfeed.net/news/51-attack-explained/ (http://www.btcfeed.net/news/51-attack-explained/)

Everything is vulnerable. However I have not tried out litecoin

You realize that anything that happens to Bitcoin is going to affect every other cryptocurrency. By converting to LTC, you're not insulating yourself against a 51% attack.

I dont think that this is a smart move bro :b

Section 11, Paragraph 1 - https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf


http://www.coindesk.com/ghash-io-never-launch-51-attack/

Sorry to break it to you but Litecoin recently had a pool with 51% as well.

The only thing you gain here is switching to a coin that is up against myriad new(not forks of bitcoin) cryptocurrency technologies (NXT/NEM, CryptoNote coins, Qora, CryptCoin ect). And it looks like Litecoin development has no response to the flood of competition.

I don't hold any altcoins right now, but one thing I do know is that there doesn't seem to be much reason to be buying Litecoin right now. It's a coin from 2011.

I think it is less appropriate choice, my friend.
You should be able to read the situation and watching the price of both. if you do so without consideration then maybe you will incur a loss and regret is useless is not it??
or if you still want to do it then do it gradually

Is this a joke? Google coinotron.

Right... If it is on the internet is must be true huh.... lol...

A 51% attack on litecoin would be much easier. I hope this works out for you.  :-\

Litecoin is a dead end. Bitcoin is going mainstream, LTC will be left behind to wither and die like flowers in the fall.

LOL!

Converting to a SCRYPT coin because you're concerned about 51% attacks? Too much roaving hash on scrypt multipools etc for those to be any more secure than BTC, and as mentioned, an attack on BTC will impact all crypto.

People seem highly confused about what a 51% attack involved:
1. Intent
2. Concerted effort to falsify transactions which will later be nullified
3. >50% of the overall hash rate.. Not just 51% of the current network hash rate, but >100% of it.. You need to run an ALTERNATIVE blockchain that's solving things faster than the real block chain, meaning you need more power than the entire existing network.. Hypothetically you don't need all this hash rate yourself, you just need to be able to split the network and have access to both concurrent networks.. Of course this poses massive logistical challenges.. Also - if Ghash.io were to perform a 51% attack, they would effectivley have to disappear from the network to start their own fork of the blockchain, which would be pretty obvious. People would know it was coming.
4. A crapload of investment in mining equipment (millions of dollars worth), which will severely depreciate if you succeed.
5. Risk: People would be VERY unhappy.

Q: Who stands to profit from this?
A: Only someone enormously wealthy who stands to benefit from the destruction of Bitcoin in a degree that exceeds the cost of duplicating the entire network's hash rate. Not worth it for anyone else.

Just a couple pennies that I'm giving out.

Like others have said, I don't know if this is a good idea because all of these other currencies are so heavily tied to BTC. If BTC falls then the rest will be right with it. However there could be a bright side by converting your BTC to a smaller currency because you could gain a higher number of less valuable coins. So if the price goes up of that coin, then you could make more money when going back to BTC.

You are gonna lose money on this trade
Litecoin is light years behind btc in adoption terms
The ghash will be sorted out by he community

Quite a retarded step really. Most of the sites which had accepted Litecoins as a payment earlier have closed down. Examples are Atlantis and Litecoinglobal. Now Litecoin is just another worthless altcoin.

Historically that isn't true. When Bitcoin experienced the accidental hard fork the entire network was affected, both technically and economically as transactions were in stasis and BTC pricing plunged. None of that happened to Litecoin.




What is "roaving hash"?

OP, I wouldn't convert all my BTC to LTC. I would however hold some percentage of both. Ask any wealthy person if diversification of assets is favorable or not, and I believe they'll tell you it's generally favorable.

Litecoin is too closely correlated with. Btc for this hedge to work, I would have thought

Honestly at this point if you're seriously concerned about the security of cryptocoin networks I would recommend buying some gold or maybe some promising stocks or something. Wait it out a bit to see how the developers approach the problem and see what solutions come up and are hopefully implemented.

The one thing that myself and everyone else can see is that buying Litecoin is probably the worst possible thing you could have done.

Yet another newbie creating more FUD. You'd have to be a TOTAL fool to do something like this.

Always go against the heard of sheep , you did good buying Litecoin .

Just HODL

I'd have called it a smart move if u converted it to Gold ETF :)

By the way, is it your last attempt to push Litecoin prices up so that u can sell them at lower loss and move to BTC ?  :D

I agree with holding gold, not so much stocks, at least not now. As I posted above diversification is generally a good idea.


There isn't anything which is perfectly safe IMO. However gold may be the best, in terms of predictable, pick of an imperfect lot. Bitcoin core developers will admit Bitcoin is experimental, I believe. Gavin recently reiterated such:

https://bitcoinfoundation.org/2014/06/13/centralized-mining/



You are one person. Almost 300 million dollars disagrees:

http://coinmarketcap.com/

If you're a fan of PoW and can't stand PoS coins, your best bet against 51% attacks is Myriadcoin.
If you're ok with PoS coins, nothing better than NXT.

Bitcoin until the bitter end

~CfA~

how to throw money out of the window

by BitCoinDream

No question that Litecoin has a solid market cap but selling bitcoin out of fear of 51% and then buying Litecoin is like jumping from the pan into the fire. Litecoin can be attacked far more easily than Bitcoin. There was a pool with 51% on Litecoin just a couple of weeks ago!

Add the fact that there are tons of promising new innovative technologies coming out in the altcoin world and I can't possibly see how Litecoin can look like a good investment. That is unless the Litecoin dev team is in the process of upgrading the protocol to get it up to 2014 standards. In which case I'm all for Litecoin and I'd be all over it.

Is Litecoin being upgraded?

Roaving Hash refers to the multipools that switch from coin to coin, and the general massive amount of scrypt hashing power that's out there and not focused on LTC.. BTC has the majority by far of all SHA256 hashing going on in Crypto, whereas Litecoin can only account for a fraction of the overall hashing going on in the SCRYPT realm.. Scrypt it a very different landscape.

Regarding the BTC fork -- wasn't that after BTC had exploded but before LTC was really noticed? The price of LTC lagged for quite some time after BTC, but eventually had it's own boom when it went up to $30+ USD.. True that LTC isn't directly tied to BTC prices, but generally when the BTC price crashes, alts don't fare well -- I suspect this would especially true for alts that face the exact same vulnerabilities that would be exploited in this case.. It would be easier to attack LTC than BTC, so an attack on BTC would not fare well on LTC...

Can't confirm these numbers, but per http://liteshack.com/which tracks 100+ scrypt coins:
- That's a MAJOR liability in my mind.. Bigger than a participatory (i.e. non bad-actor) 51% of the BTC network belonging to one pool.

wise move!
...
not!  :D

As long as the money stays in the BTC and the LTC all is Good.  must not have a worry.

~CfA~

Litecoin  :-\  Good luck. But if more people think like you.... Don´t forget to sell than  ;D

Litecoin is far better than 99.9% of the shitcoins presented here in that forum

~CfA~

Excerpts from the origional Bitcoin Whitepaper (Satoshi Nakamoto):

Also - check out: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Weaknesses#Attacker_has_a_lot_of_computing_power

I don't hold any litecoins, but I am tempted to buy some because the price has fallen quite a bit the last few months. If it bounces back to the long term average level, you are looking at nearly 50% gain. Not a bad trade at all. OP just did it for the wrong reasons.

What does likecoin have?

1. ASIC resistant (not any more)
2. 2.5 min block (faster confirmations = greater risk in 51% scenario)

Otherwise LTC is basically a copy/paste of BTC.. What's so good about that? The only good thing about LTC in my mind is basically the fact that it was second-to-market and has a substantial lingering community.

Litecoin wasn't quite second to market if I remember correctly. But it was one of the first non scam coins.

Solidcoin and other RealSolid coins were pretty bad.

Innovation

~CfA~

OP is a dumb imbecile. I loled while reading his post.

Litecoin may have very well been the worst alt coin you could of converted your BTC to. Did you not see that it fell over 80% from its ATH? Do you not see that it can be 51% attacked and it'll be MUCH MUCH cheaper to do so than BTC? Did you not see that litecoin is just a bitcoin clone and offers nothing?

But of course, you're going to "HODL" Litecoin, even when it reaches $1 you'll still be "HODLING" and hoping for a huge price rise. Even when it drops like a stone to 10 cents, you'll still be "HODLING". Ever heard of Auroracoin? Yea Litecoin is the long term version of that. Hit it's high and guess where Aurora is trading at now, 30 cents.

In this thread https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=658541.0 "darkota" has just "officially" declared Litecoin as dead. :D

So dakota has the "official" word on Litecoin in his own self-moderated thread.  Errr...riiight. ::)

All these litecoin threads are getting so annoying. Lets talk about something else....like noblecoin

Part of me wants a 51% attack to happen to BTC. Maybe FUD wins, maybe the price crashes, maybe no-one learns anything. But I don't doubt for a second the developers/evangelists won't be all over it and the core BTC protocol would be stronger afterwards because of it. Because they seem in a reactive rather than proactive state, the sooner it happens, the sooner we stop fearing it and start addressing it. There's nothing stopping LTC from facing the same problem.

I hold both.

Thats not a pump, thats a dead cat bounce. The last dying breath of a dying coin and it's already run out of steam.

Have a look at Doge's last couple of months - same pattern. Long slow drift down with sporadic bounces along the way as some hopeful speculator thinks they've "caught the bottom" when in fact they're just attaching themselves to a sinking ship.

I wouldn't put my money in LTC for anything right now - it's in terminal decline.

you crazy?? Bitcoin is the king.no other coins can beat it. you should hold it for long time.

or you just  be kidding  you wanna pruchase more bitcoins .no one can be cheated by you guy.

In your own words: "the weight of ur argument blows me away."


Even better:

you said litecoin is being pumped in OP.  doesn't that mean the price is being pumped up, it is still pretty low compared to a few months ago right ?

If you're concerned about the centralisation of mining and risks of 51% attacks, which indeed are reasons to be concerned, wouldn't investing in an alternate PoS coin be a more logical solution?

so far everything litecoin is doing is according to plan, one of the highest marketcaps of all the coins you cannot simply dismiss it


and as for the price refer to the quote

Don't think that was very good move at all.  Personally i've got 70/30 going on between btc/ltc.  And strongly considering moving in the opposite direction you did...moving ltc into btc.

If an attack happened I think everyone would dump all coins for fiat or anything similar.

i would go with the bittrex flavour of the day which is razor!!

with over 45 btc in sells does not look good to buy in just yet, big sell of 7 btc worth just above current price

One word: Coinotron. Remember when it created a 51% scare in litecoin?

Wasn't that less than a month ago too?

It just seems absurd to go from bitcoin to a coin that is much less secure. The networks can not be compared.

Not sure if this is a good move. The LTC price had been 40$ earlier this year, but it has been pretty much stuck on 7-10$ for the last few months.

Alot of people on this site really need to watch this dudes vids.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bi2thGzzNSs

I don't blame you LTC has been going down and it seems it doesn't pick up

This. Litecoin is a good coin and a worthy addition to any crypto portfolio but it seems that OP has jumped for the wrong reason.

This. Litecoin has not done much of an uptrend since the 40$. (January 2014). 

 

I was about to ask for an easy to understand explanation on this 51% stuff, and here it is

Thanks zachamo !

No problem, glad someone actually read it...

Also - OP, the video you posted is garbage.. basically totally wrong as pointed out here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=559217.msg6100248#msg6100248 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=559217.msg6100248#msg6100248)

This is a much better rundown: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNgjdYkaDvA (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNgjdYkaDvA)

If you are considering a safe haven, NXT requires a 91% attack. It is proof of stake though. Very interesting concept. In other words, someone would have to own 91% of all NXT coins in order to pull off an attack. It has risen from a market cap of 21 BTC to over 100,000 BTC since November 2013.

Yeah, in general NXT seems pretty good and very much under appreciated by the community at large. I don't own any but the only real criticism I see from people is them being angry that they didn't buy any at the IPO and calling it unfair because they didn't risk any of their own money on a new technology. Which of course is not a valid criticism.

I agree that the 51% is a huge issue.  Shame on Ghash!

Still.... If I cash out bitcoins, what should I buy. 

Litecoin is going down day by day, even month by month.
NXT is going down and finding its new price after a big run.
Peercoin has consistently gone down for quite some time.
Darkcoin had a huge run and is going down and down. 
Ripple hasn't gone up since I am not sure when.
And poor Doge hasn't done anything but go down and because of mining will just continue.

When a real alternative comes along, I will go into it big.  Right now most of my non-bitcoin money is in NXT because I see them coming out with lots of new features of the months and coming year.  But Peercoin, Darkcoin, Ripple, Litecoin, and Doge won't ever add a single other feature and so their prices will go down. 

Well.... Litecoin is getting Asics, and while that doesn't give the coin itself a feature, it does change the network.  I have heard arguments on both sides why this is good and/or bad though.  If anything, it will make the price go cheaper as Asics will be sweeping up most of the coins on the easy so they can afford to sell on the cheap. 

You buy when it's going down if fundamentals haven't changed for the worse. Have they? No. The only barrier is your emotions, nothing else.

switching to ltc is a bad idea.

you would be better of going for doggie.

ltc had hope that mtgox will support it, now there is no mtgox, so no hope for ltc

to have some bitcoins and litecoins is always a clever choice (gold/silver) but all in one basket seems risky.