Theoretical Ceiling on Difficulty

[Anarchaos]

As far as I understand it, the practical benefit to the BTC network to having increased difficulty would be increased security and stability. Correct me if I'm wrong, CAUSE I'M A BIG FAT NOOB RETARD LOL

So let's all pretend we're all l33t h4x0rs who want to compromise the BTC network for fun and *profit*. How high would the difficulty need to be for me as a hacker to be discouraged from attempting to steal/manipulate/whatever from the BTC network? What kind of resources (financial, hardware, connections etc) would a haxxor need to overcome the increased security that comes from increased difficulty levels? Again, I'm assuming that that's what increased difficulty does, or else what's the point of having all these expensive ASICs taking up all this power.

[bitpop]

Fucking Retard

[thomashrev89]

i like turtles

[01BTC10]

l33t h4x0rs_LOL

[bitpop]

Lose some fat

[drawingthesun]

As far as I understand it, the practical benefit to the BTC network to having increased difficulty would be increased security and stability. Correct me if I'm wrong, CAUSE I'M A BIG FAT NOOB RETARD LOL

So let's all pretend we're all l33t h4x0rs who want to compromise the BTC network for fun and *profit*. How high would the difficulty need to be for me as a hacker to be discouraged from attempting to steal/manipulate/whatever from the BTC network? What kind of resources (financial, hardware, connections etc) would a haxxor need to overcome the increased security that comes from increased difficulty levels? Again, I'm assuming that that's what increased difficulty does, or else what's the point of having all these expensive ASICs taking up all this power.

You are correct that increased difficulty makes it harder to tamper with the network, but I think that you are completely unaware about the process in which the Bitcoin network secures itself.

Basically computers are put to a task, a puzzle if you like. This puzzle releases Bitcoins and processes transactions for the network. This process is required but needs to have decentralized computing power otherwise a malicious entity could control the network. If someone controls the network they can block transactions and do other nasty stuff.

The networks needs a small amount of work done (processing the transactions) but can't allow 1 person to do what they want. So essentially the network gives the computers a puzzle, once complete the transactions are processed and a incentive to do this is a release of Bitcoins. To stop 1 person making millions of blocks and getting all the Bitcoins the network adjusts to make this puzzle harder and harder (As a function of the speed the puzzle is being completed, if the puzzle gets completed to fast the puzzle becomes even harder) The released money so valuable that lots of people are trying to complete the puzzle. This means as more and more people want those Bitcoins it becomes more and more unlikely any 1 person could get them all, because they would need to have more computing power than the rest of the network to gain control.

So your hacker/cracker would need to invest millions and millions of dollars into computers to complete that puzzle. Once you can complete the puzzle faster than the rest of the network continuously, you can then do those cracker things like committing double spends and blocking other peoples transactions.

[Anarchaos]

<quote>So your hacker/cracker would need to invest millions and millions of dollars into computers to complete that puzzle. Once you can complete the puzzle faster than the rest of the network continuously, you can then do those cracker things like committing double spends and blocking other peoples transactions.</quote>

Blah blah blah. What's the ratio between how much a miner has to invest in mining to how much a hacker would have to invest into decryption in order to break sha256 or whatever the fuck?

[drawingthesun]

<quote>So your hacker/cracker would need to invest millions and millions of dollars into computers to complete that puzzle. Once you can complete the puzzle faster than the rest of the network continuously, you can then do those cracker things like committing double spends and blocking other peoples transactions.</quote>

Blah blah blah. What's the ratio between how much a miner has to invest in mining to how much a hacker would have to invest into decryption in order to break sha256 or whatever the fuck?

Haha ok so you are a troll.

• 1. Your quotes are messed up, please fix.
• 2. The only reasonable way to attack Bitcoin is to buy/build as many miners as possible.
• 3. A ratio of 1:10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 exists for mining:breaking sha256 for the goal of "haxxoring" Bitcoin.
• 4. Maybe you should read the Bitcoin wiki and Satoshi's paper and educate yourself. At the moment you lack ability to research, you lack basic social skills and you most certainly lack intelligence.

[01BTC10]

invest into decryption in order to break sha256

lol

Maybe read more on hashing algorithm and how they work.

[FreedomCoin]

alot of money

[BurtW]

It is easy, just buy enough of these bad boys to take over half the network:

http://codinginmysleep.com/bfl-introduces-28nm-asic-and-its-a-pcie-card/

Each card will do 600 Ghash/s

The current hash rate of the entire network is 540 Thash/s

To be safe lets buy 600 Thash/s so that by the time all the cards get delivered and set up we will still have half the network.  

600 T / 600 G = 1,000 cards

Since I am buying 1,000 of them I expect a price break so let's call it $4,500 per card

Total cost $4,500 x 1,000 = $4,500,000 + shipping etc. lets call it an even 5 million dollars.

Now you have to set them up and run them.

You will need 1,000 x 300 W = 300 kW of power to run the cards

Operating costs including hosting and air conditioning should be less than $300 per hour!

This should get us 25 x 6 / 2 = 75 BTC per hour = $7,500 - 300 = $7,200 profit per hour.

And I can get my $5 million dollars back in only about one month!

Let's do it!!!

[kaerf]

pwn the pools to disrupt the network.

[Anarchaos]

Haha ok so you are a troll.

    1. Your quotes are messed up, please fix.
    2. The only reasonable way to attack Bitcoin is to buy/build as many miners as possible.
    3. A ratio of 1:10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 exists for mining:breaking sha256 for the goal of "haxxoring" Bitcoin.
    4. Maybe you should read the Bitcoin wiki and Satoshi's paper and educate yourself. At the moment you lack ability to research, you lack basic social skills and you most certainly lack intelligence.

I'm not a troll. I'm autistic, and I posted while drunk last night.

Is that a legit ratio you posted, or did you just type a lot of zeros for dramatic effect?

I don't lack the ability to research, I'm just really lazy.

I do have social skills, I just gave up caring about what random strangers on the internet think of me a while back.

And I can get my $5 million dollars back in only about one month!

Would this really be the most cost effective way of stealing/manipulating BTC for profit?

[BurtW]

And I can get my $5 million dollars back in only about one month!

Would this really be the most cost effective way of stealing/manipulating BTC for profit?

Yes, kindof.  In general, playing by the Bitcoin rules is the most cost effective way to make a profit - that is why Bitcoin works.

[Xyver]

If you have the resources to buy enough hardware to "steal" or "take control of" the network, it wouldn't be worth it to you.  You'd be better off not letting people know how much power you control, and quietly mine over 1500 coins/day.

Now, say you did want to just take the hardware and ruin the network, you weren't doing this to make money.  The above estimate is a good one, but that is the most efficient miner on the market (except its not even on the market yet....) Assuming regular ASICs, you'd probably need closer to 10 million.

Though, then you'd have to deal with actually aquiring all those miners, which I'm sure the companies wouldn't want to put that much power into one persons hand (yes, they're probably in it just for the money, but if the bitcoin network is destroyed, their business is ruined.)

So... The best way would be getting GPU miners.  Those are the easiest to get your hands on, and you can buy in bulk easier then buying ASICs in bulk.

So, 7970's get you 700 megahashes/sec, at about 400 apiece.  So you need 357 000 of them to get the required 250 terahashes, which costs you 143 million.  It also requires 89 250 000 watts, or 89 megawatts, costing you ~9000 in power per day.  Double that to take into account the cooling required, add in the physical space, and round up for unexpected circumstances, takes you to about 150 million.

[01BTC10]

Not even sure that you can buy 357 000 GPU at once.