bitcoin's doom is not 51% attack, it's 99% attack

[bassclef]

The government invented NASA and the Mars mission. Producing its own ASICs would be a piece of cake for them.

And they're still using ship technology from the 1970s. Governments tend to move like leviathans... slowly and predictably. By the time they decide to use ASICs, that ship will have sailed and they will have spent millions on making the decision in the first place.

[Anon136]

I was thinking that maybe it would be possible to make an altcoin that has its proof of work algorithm randomly changing so that it would be impossible to make an ASIC for it.

ive thought for a while that this would be a very worthy altcoin.

[DeathAndTaxes]

For the record those aren't tanks.  They are Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles (or Bradley Cavalry Fighting Vehicle if you are in the CAV).

Could a govt 51% or 99% Bitcoin ... sure. However that would simply move crypto-currencies to even better protected alt-coins.  Necessity is the mother of all invention.  As we all know the take down of Napster ending p2p filesharing forever ...

[dg2010]

Could a govt 51% or 99% Bitcoin ... sure. However that would simply move crypto-currencies to even better protected alt-coins.  Necessity is the mother of all invention.  As we all know the take down of Napster ending p2p filesharing forever ...

Great to see a shred of sense in an otherwise shit-tank of a thread.

There is little a government will gain by maliciously trying to attack the network and whatever they do gain will be taken back by the next thing.

AKA the war on drugs, the war on terror, the war on crypto currency.

[massivebitman]

Why the fuck would a government want to wage a 51% attack.

If they wanted to shut it down they'd just take seize the exchanges and make it illegal.

Game over for bitcoin. If people are still using it illegally then they could 51% attack. They wouldn't need ASICs I'm sure that due to the massive investments in cyberwarfare, they already have more than enough computing power to outhash the entire network, let alone if it were illegal and thus most people stopped mining.

[organofcorti]

The government invented NASA and the Mars mission. Producing its own ASICs would be a piece of cake for them.

I'm very much looking forward to the first attack on the network from Mars.

[Piper67]

OP, which government? Let's say, assuming for a millisecond that you're not trolling and are actually proposing a serious scenario, that the US government decides to take over Bitcoin by manufacturing ASICs like it's nobody's business.

The problem is, it IS somebody's business.

The next step: The Chinese government goes "hmmmm... the Americans are trying to manufacture these ASICs to take over the Bitcoin network. We could do it too, but cheaper", and off we go. Talk about currency wars.

And this is only two variables (US, China), it gets significantly more complex (and ridiculously more expensive for any one of them) if you add into the equation Russia, India, Japan, Brazil, Korea, Argentina, South Africa... I could go on.

There is no "the government".

[bitchess]

Does anybody have the statistics on how much it would take to generate 75.095 Thash/s (the latest overall hash rate)?

If the government were to invest a billion dollars in ASICs, is the system at risk to 51% attack?  Perhaps yes.  What to do?

[LaggedOnUser]

That's why we have BBQCoin, in case someone has a beef with the other coins, they turn chicken, and get porked.  Sorry, it's lunchtime here... 

[bitchess]

That's why we have BBQCoin, in case someone has a beef with the other coins, they turn chicken, and get porked.  Sorry, it's lunchtime here... 

Are you saying that once they ruin BTC something else will replace it?  The counter argument is that they start with the biggest threat (BTC), kill it, then move on to the 2nd largest thread which is easier to kill.  Extending this argument means that if the attacker can kill the biggest threat, they can kill all threats.

[LaggedOnUser]

That's why we have BBQCoin, in case someone has a beef with the other coins, they turn chicken, and get porked.  Sorry, it's lunchtime here... 

Are you saying that once they ruin BTC something else will replace it?  The counter argument is that they start with the biggest threat (BTC), kill it, then move on to the 2nd largest thread which is easier to kill.  Extending this argument means that if the attacker can kill the biggest threat, they can kill all threats.

Yeah, I was only joking.  But in reply to your arguments, the smaller the coin, the easier it is to kill.  It Bitcoin goes, likely they all go.

[Anon136]

Does anybody have the statistics on how much it would take to generate 75.095 Thash/s (the latest overall hash rate)?

If the government were to invest a billion dollars in ASICs, is the system at risk to 51% attack?  Perhaps yes.  What to do?

we switch to scrypt and 1 billion dollars worth of government money poofs into thin air.

[confinedsc]

To one of the early posters, you cannot simply buy up all the bitcoin and crash the market to destroy a currency.  The more bitcoins someone buys, the higher the price will skyrocket, making it cost prohibitive to own a majority of them.  And even if they had the enormous amount of funds required to capture a majority of coins, selling them off to crash the bubble they created will only likely return it to its former price roughly after the market cools off.

[organofcorti]

Does anybody have the statistics on how much it would take to generate 75.095 Thash/s (the latest overall hash rate)?

If the government were to invest a billion dollars in ASICs, is the system at risk to 51% attack?  Perhaps yes.  What to do?

we switch to scrypt and 1 billion dollars worth of government money poofs into thin air.

Yep. Noobs just cannot comprehend it seems that one of the features of Bitcoin is adaptablity to everything. We, The People, can fork the Bitcoin network overnight. And all those freshly produced ASICs will become worthless and the guberment can call all the shots in useless dying fork of theirs. In fact we can change the hashing algorithm every block. Once every 10 minutes. Good luck to guberment producing and rolling new batch of ASICs every 10 minutes.

It's spelled gub'mint, Vladimir. And stop being mean to the n00bs.

[1m1nd]

Could superman shut down the bitcoin network?

[LaggedOnUser]

Could superman shut down the bitcoin network?

No... cause cryptocoins are made of cryptonite! 

[batcoin]

Does anybody have the statistics on how much it would take to generate 75.095 Thash/s (the latest overall hash rate)?

If the government were to invest a billion dollars in ASICs, is the system at risk to 51% attack?  Perhaps yes.  What to do?

we switch to scrypt and 1 billion dollars worth of government money poofs into thin air.

And? 1 billion dollars is how expensive when talking about government? According to 2011 numbers, the US government spends $10.4 billion per day. Do you think this number has gone down in the past two years?

The point stands, however, that it would not be very hard to make necessary decisions and changes to counter a >51% attack by anyone. Bitcoin might take a hit, but it'll develop scar tissue and become all the stronger in the long run.