Bitcoin security risk? How many miners make up 51% of the hashrate?

[God bless u]

The simple answer here would be is that it would take a great deal for any entity to try and control most of bitcoin.

Satoshi is right that as long as they are not evil, they will not do anything to sabotage the decentralized nature of bitcoin at all. Since miners can work independently, it would be difficult to try and convince a lot of them to work under a specific entity especially one with malicious intent.

I don’t know if there is any recent data but bitcoin’s decentralization must be strengthened over time in order to prevent this.

Right. But that was never the question. The question is, what if they are evil?

And over time, it would appear that decentralization is diminishing and the natural consolidation of businesses will probably consolidate it further.

miners know many pools of different brands and which are affiliated or not.. heck even you know which ones are affiliated and which are not. so if 2 pools were colluding. and miner owners working for their pool notice dodgy stuff happening to their pools blocks. the miners can hop to a different pool thats not colluding

Brands? Huh? What are you talking about?

Can you tell me the "brands" of each of the severs below?

a) 33.171.87.6
b) 103.52.102.88
c) 65.191.4.49

All I see are IP addresses, which can be changed on the fly and spoofed. That's all any software on the Internet sees. How would miners magically know what nodes are "good" and which ones have been compromised? And what actual mechanism is there to "decide" any of this? Certainly no centralized mechanism.

Look it's true that mining is not that much safer to do and it is not safer enough to make the Investments but the point here is crypto safer to Invest either?

We have been seeing nowadays that blockchains have failed to provide the enough security that we are expecting. Recently a japani blockchain was hacked and millions worth BTc was stolen from it.  Nothing here is safer now we have to take care by ourselves. Try to avoid doing extra things as much as you can.

[PrivacyG]

The prevailing notion about Bitcoin is that:

1. It is "impossible" for any government or other large entity to control Bitcoin.

2. Bitcoin is "absolutely safe" since the redundancy and dispersal of the network makes it impossible to compromise.

I do not even need to read the rest of your Post.  Bitcoin is impossible to be controlled because it is not a fixed thing.  Bitcoin is not nailed to a wall, it can morph to our needs.  This is why we have so many Altcoins, they are supposed to be alterations to Bitcoin so they can fit particular needs better.

So if a 51 percent attack happens.  Besides the uncertainty and doubt it would create among Bitcoin users, there are ways to put Bitcoin back into a safe place very quickly.  This is automatically a reason for Miners to NOT organize an attack because it costs a lot of Money and at the end of the day all the waste would be on their bags.  If there was a way for them to profit off the attack, it would have already happened probably.  But with no incentive, why would they even try to do it?

[legiteum]

Brands? Huh? What are you talking about?

ill answer your question with your own words

some of these mining companies are large, publicly traded companies.

as for you endlessly talking about nodes.. (facepalm)
miners are ASIC devices.. asic devices are not nodes

Got it. Can you tell me what IP addresses on the Internet are owned by AAPL? By TSLA? By... any other public company?

Could you tell me if this IP address is own by a terrorist organization or the Salvation Army: 81.201.75.9 ?

Based on that IP address, what does it tell you?

And we're playing with semantics here: ASICs are chips inside of servers that are owned and operated by companies who can be infiltrated, bribed, or ordered around by a government.

Look it's true that mining is not that much safer to do and it is not safer enough to make the Investments but the point here is crypto safer to Invest either?

I completely agree. I am not trying to convey that Bitcoin is not, overall, very safe. If somebody asked me, I would tell them it's as safe as many major investment instruments like major stocks and so on. Indeed, most people who invest in Bitcoin will see far more risk from their broker's keeping of their Bitcoin than from Bitcoin itself.

But it's a fallacy to say that Bitcoin is "government-proof", or that it's "impossible" to be infiltrated through either legal or illegal means. There is certainly a risk there that exists. For a government, it would be matter of ordering two companies to do something (or say a small handful of companies) rather than a single company in the case of a bank.

[pooya87]

If their systems have been hacked, or they have been ordered by their government to do something, or they have been internally compromised then... they will brick their own investment. They wouldn't have any choice.

Such a thing would target pools not miners, and as I said it would hurt the system temporarily as people migrate to other pools and issues are patched.

Next, try to find somebody you know who doesn't have an account on this forum who has a self-custodial wallet .

Many do. People who I've introduced to Bitcoin who don't see it as a "get rich quick" thing have a self-custodial wallet.

[legiteum]

If their systems have been hacked, or they have been ordered by their government to do something, or they have been internally compromised then... they will brick their own investment. They wouldn't have any choice.

Such a thing would target pools not miners, and as I said it would hurt the system temporarily as people migrate to other pools and issues are patched.

No, such an attack would target miners. Or whomever was required to control Bitcoin. That would be the whole point.