Bitcoin Forum

48%....shit. It's going to be real.

Do you have a screenshoot for me? I'd like to share it with twitter.

39% now. https://blockchain.info/pools

39% now. https://blockchain.info/pools

You're looking at 4 days I believe, look at 24hrs.

Well if no one will step up and do something we could be in for a rude awakening. Where are the bitcoin pirates with their DDOS botnets to take this pool down a notch  :P ....

DDOS attackers are pure scum. Such an attack would cost other bit coin miners lost revenue. Are you going to pay them back?  

I see few options if we actually reach 50%+ .... Bitcoins will be worthless if double spending occurs. Network compromised ruins this system.

They would destroy their own company and wealth to do it. Why in the world would they toss away tons of revenue to double spend a few coins?

So much paranoia on these forums, and so much forgetting about rational self-interest. What do you think happens to the fool who destroys the wealth of tens of thousands of hackers?

Nothing good.

Deepbit had controlling share in the network a couple of times and we survived. They won't do anything because it's in their best interest to play nice. Think about it a minute. They're holding a mass of btc profit from running a successful pool. They could continue making more money but instead they decide to make their holdings worthless by fucking with the network. Yeah, that makes sense. Calm down people, the sky isn't falling.

So much paranoia on these forums, and so much forgetting about rational self-interest. What do you think happens to the fool who destroys the wealth of tens of thousands of hackers?

Their "mass of BTC profit" isn't from their pool.  Their pool costs them money, it makes them nothing.  It has, from day 1, made absolutely no economic sense for their pool to exist at all.  Their private farm is as large or larger than any other pool as is, so the argument of letting others join them to reduce their variance is moot.  They're too large for variance to make an impact on their monthly revenues.  They're paying to run servers for people for nothing, unless they're skimming from the top.

FUD BUT FACT NOTICE

The real threat isn't a 51% attack, the real fear should be with more than 51% of the nethash they could force any revision to the client or protocol they wanted. If you didn't accept accept the new protocol or client, then goodbye wallet!

That should be what scares you, not some 51% attack.

/END FUD


~BCX~

Right now they are at 42%. The Bitcoin Foundation should issue a directive to the GHash guys, to split their pool to two or more smaller ones. Or it should support the other mining pools, so that they could wean away some of the miners from GHash.

39% now. https://blockchain.info/pools

I'm glad some hash decided to leave Ghash and move somewhere else we don't want to see a single network controlling more than 50%

anyways if ghash a pool or a company ?
i always thought ghash was part of cex.io or what ever its called ?

I sincerely doubt ghash.io would destroy their own business by manipulating the market after reaching 51% of hashing power. It is likely they already have safety measures put in place.

So if I read correctly, you guys are saying its time to move to LTC hehe ?
i joke i joke

Thre are  some big players who won't allow any group to hold this 51% hash rate.

although 51%+ is a pivitol point. remember its not the fact that they have 51%, its the fact of if they will do anything nasty once they have 51%+

although id like to think they wouldnt shoot themselves in the foot by doing anything... thus nothing will change, there is that chance that the owner of Ghash is a complete knob and would do something.. so dont think of the 51%, think about if GHash CEO is a knob or not. and lets hope he is not.

with that said lets get all your miners on different pools to disburse the hash-power so we never have to find out if Ghash CEO will be a knob or not

So much paranoia on these forums, and so much forgetting about rational self-interest. What do you think happens to the fool who destroys the wealth of tens of thousands of hackers?

Nothing good.

Deepbit had controlling share in the network a couple of times and we survived. They won't do anything because it's in their best interest to play nice. Think about it a minute. They're holding a mass of btc profit from running a successful pool. They could continue making more money but instead they decide to make their holdings worthless by fucking with the network. Yeah, that makes sense. Calm down people, the sky isn't falling.

I sincerely doubt ghash.io would destroy their own business by manipulating the market after reaching 51% of hashing power. It is likely they already have safety measures put in place.

interesting times! so let the price go down because the system ist too centralized.  ;D

I doubt they would do anything malicious as well. But that's not the point. The point is that Bitcoin is trustless, yet I have to trust them.

I sincerely doubt ghash.io would destroy their own business by manipulating the market after reaching 51% of hashing power. It is likely they already have safety measures put in place.

If a 51% can occur, all trust in bitcoin should be lost forever. An investment that relies on people begging random strangers on reddit not to ruin it every couple of weeks is not really something that seems like a great thing to pour actual money into, tbqh.

GHash is a good company.
They don't want to double spend or miners would just leave them so that they lose profits.
I.e 100BTC a day from other people mining is the perfect revenue for maintaining a pool... Don't thing they would want to lose that for gaining an extra few BTC by double spending

GHash is a good company.

I.e 100BTC a day from other people mining is the perfect revenue for maintaining a pool... Don't thing they would want to lose that for gaining an extra few BTC by double spending

Everytime I check on the blockchain hashrate distribution statistics , a paranoid part of me wonders if the 18% unknown is actually ghash.io covering up

And every time I see somebody asking this I feel like telling him , "of course they are " just to drive the paranoia further.

But really , it's the second time this year we have this debate and nothing changed and nothing happened from the last time.

Unless I see other pools offering a 0 fee and being as reliable as ghash the same time , nothing will change.

yes, you are the first person who understands it  ;)

but we have to find a solution for this mining-problem or we will face it over and over again...

http://de.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/27ls92/people_need_to_realize_50_isnt_a_magic_line_it/

Their "mass of BTC profit" isn't from their pool.  Their pool costs them money, it makes them nothing.  It has, from day 1, made absolutely no economic sense for their pool to exist at all.  Their private farm is as large or larger than any other pool as is, so the argument of letting others join them to reduce their variance is moot.  They're too large for variance to make an impact on their monthly revenues.  They're paying to run servers for people for nothing, unless they're skimming from the top.

Who is this private firm behind that is paying for servers with no profit ...as u r saying ?

with 0% pool fee. how does it work?

Didn't realise that it was a 0% fee pool... How do they generate revenue?

And I thought bitcoin was updates to resist such attacks.

but they make changes to allow it to spread their hash and reduced it.

Their "mass of BTC profit" isn't from their pool.  Their pool costs them money, it makes them nothing.  It has, from day 1, made absolutely no economic sense for their pool to exist at all.  Their private farm is as large or larger than any other pool as is, so the argument of letting others join them to reduce their variance is moot.  They're too large for variance to make an impact on their monthly revenues.  They're paying to run servers for people for nothing, unless they're skimming from the top.

You all know the shit, why don't you guys buy peercoin?

This has never happened.  They have made no changes or any efforts to limit their speed.  The made a very poorly made post about their plans, which included such things as letting cloud miners pick a different pool, which is *EVEN WORSE* since that means their share of the network is unknowable.

How does buying peercoin fix the 51% issue?

48%....shit. It's going to be real.

Do you have a screenshoot for me? I'd like to share it with twitter.

What is the estimate until they get to 51% anyway ?

What is the estimate until they get to 51% anyway ?

you can attack bitcoin even with 30%.
51% just guarantees a success (in an unlimited timeframe and with the assumption that no new hashrate is added)

You are correct but the opposite is true as well. Having 51% does not guarantee an attack, it only makes it possible.

i still think they should stop accepting other pool-blocks and build only their chain.
its in their interest: it would result in a lower diff

i am very intersted in the outcome. tradegy-of-the-commons vs bitcoin-doomsday

are you nuts?  completely fork the chain.. apparently you dont have much to lose..

i still think they should stop accepting other pool-blocks and build only their chain.
its in their interest: it would result in a lower diff

i am very intersted in the outcome. tradegy-of-the-commons vs bitcoin-doomsday

http://fuk.io/cexio-ghashio-jeffrey-smith-interview-exclusive/ made interview with CIO of ghash.

This is fucking serious people get off GHash the consequences for 51% are huge. It could be detrimental for bitcoin going forward. Once people realize that the Achilles heel in bitcoin is real, they'll permanently mark it with a negative stigma.

seriously i dont understand why 51% or more makes a difference. can someone explain please. ty

An attacker that controls more than 50% of the network's computing power can, for the time that he is in control, exclude and modify the ordering of transactions. This allows him to:

Reverse transactions that he sends while he's in control. This has the potential to double-spend transactions that previously had already been seen in the block chain.
Prevent some or all transactions from gaining any confirmations
Prevent some or all other miners from mining any valid blocks

The attacker can't:

Reverse other people's transactions
Prevent transactions from being sent at all (they'll show as 0/unconfirmed)
Change the number of coins generated per block
Create coins out of thin air
Send coins that never belonged to him
With less than 50%, the same kind of attacks are possible, but with less than 100% rate of success. For example, someone with only 40% of the network computing power can overcome a 6-deep confirmed transaction with a 50% success rate.

It's much more difficult to change historical blocks, and it becomes exponentially more difficult the further back you go. As above, changing historical blocks only allows you to exclude and change the ordering of transactions. It's impossible to change blocks created before the last checkpoint.

Since this attack doesn't permit all that much power over the network, it is expected that no one will attempt it. A profit-seeking person will always gain more by just following the rules, and even someone trying to destroy the system will probably find other attacks more attractive. However, if this attack is successfully executed, it will be difficult or impossible to "untangle" the mess created -- any changes the attacker makes might become permanent.

http://fuk.io/cexio-ghashio-jeffrey-smith-interview-exclusive/
INTERVIEW UPDATED WITH 51% ATTACK QUESTION

We STRONGLY agree that no Bitcoin user should fully trust a single entity that they will not harm and manipulate users’ funds and assets, and we will soon present a valid solution to the “Achilles heel “ problem of Bitcoin, and will start an open dialogue with other pool owners to impose this solution.

Wow, I feel much better now. I can't wait for the pool operators to become the dirty dozen and begin "imposing solutions" on Bitcoin. Time to go all in. o_O

I don't see your quote in that article.

Wow, I feel much better now. I can't wait for the pool operators to become the dirty dozen and begin "imposing solutions" on Bitcoin. Time to go all in. o_O

We would also like to state that stopping sign ups and other actions of this type would only be a temporary solution, and there would be no guarantees that later on some other pool would get the percentage close to 51%, and their intentions would not be so true and assuring as ours.

Even worse:


We don't care for a temporary solution , let's all think a few years about another one.

Yeah, I know. That whole article did anything but reassure me. What it actually did was convince me that they are going to do whatever they want to do and their isn't a damn thing any of us can do about it and they know it.

... Once people realize that the Achilles heel in bitcoin is real, they'll permanently mark it with a negative stigma.

Wow, I feel much better now. I can't wait for the pool operators to become the dirty dozen and begin "imposing solutions" on Bitcoin. Time to go all in. o_O

Ghash is currently at 32%. This out be so reassuring for some people here if Unknown wouldn't have hit 29%.

The people for whom this is true stigmatize crypto-currency already; a 51% attack on BTC would not change many opinions, pro or con.


The total computing power of the NSA and its Five Eyes friends could take BTC down at will, the total BTC market cap is about 25% of Exxon's annual take and you guys are worried about GHash hitting 51%.    ??? ???  

The total computing power of the NSA and its Five Eyes friends could take BTC down at will, the total BTC market cap is about 25% of Exxon's annual take and you guys are worried about GHash hitting 51%.    ??? ??? 

I didn't realize Exxon was mining now.

Do you have some numbers about the hashpower the nsa has or you're just posting to let others you have heard a few conspiracy theories ?

Given the disparity in capitalization, they simply could buy up all available BTC and not even dent their annual bonuses in the process.  A couple of years on, BTC would be toast.


An IBM Blue Genie/Q can clock 20 peta-FLOPS and consumes 6 MW of power.  The new NSA Datacenter in Utah, one of many such around the world, draws 65 MW of power from the grid.  

Do the math.

Current network hashrate is equivalent of 1189529.29 Petaflops.
That's 60 000 of your Blue Genie computers.

You do the math newbie :)

How are you converting intops to flops?

This is exactly how bitcoinwatch estimates FLOPS.  I am not saying it is an acurate way to do the estimate, all I am saying is this is how they do it for what it is worth and for comparison to your other methods.  Many here among us question the valididty of this estimation method.

The page simply uses the following assumptions/estimates:

    1 INTOP = 2 FLOP
    1 hash = 6.35K INTOP
    1 hash = 12.7K FLOP

So the hashrate in TeraFLOP/s is simply 12.7 times the hashrate in Gigahashes/s.

As an example:  11,558.55 Gigahashs/s * 12.7 TeraFLOP/Gigahash = 146,794 TeraFLOP/s = 146 PetaFLOP/s

Current network hashrate is equivalent of 1189529.29 Petaflops.
That's 60 000 of your Blue Genie computers.

You do the math newbie :)

The actual hashing power of the BTC network is 1039.79 peta-FLOPS.

source: http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-network-out-muscles-top-500-supercomputers/ (http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-network-out-muscles-top-500-supercomputers/)

Using a benchmark of aprox 200 peta-FLOPS per 65MW datacenter, three such facilities could launch a 51% attack on the BTC network.

Math Done  :)

Yeah, I know. That whole article did anything but reassure me. What it actually did was convince me that they are going to do whatever they want to do and their isn't a damn thing any of us can do about it and they know it.

The actual hashing power of the BTC network is 1039.79 peta-FLOPS.

source: http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-network-out-muscles-top-500-supercomputers/ (http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-network-out-muscles-top-500-supercomputers/)

Using a benchmark of aprox 200 peta-FLOPS per 65MW datacenter, three such facilities could launch a 51% attack on the BTC network.

Math Done  :)

Network Hashrate
PetaFLOPS
1190956.57

Would a moderator please merge all of these GHash threads? It's redundant and difficult to follow the discussion with so many threads all discussing the exact same topic.

article : Published on May 13, 2013

We're in 2014 right now:

I guess your name actually says it all "CTL_ALT_DEL" *poof*  :o

Wow!  So much vitriol over this, its hard to believe. ...