Those with an incentive to attack the bitcoin network

[johnyj]

Increased activity of coin transaction will just make coin less available in circulation, thus raise its value. The more you attack the network, the stronger it grows, it absorbs all the energy that fed into it

[1715623526]

1715623526

[fatguyyyyy]

govt, nsa, etc. .. big banks. Almost anyone 'big' has an incentive to take down bitcoin

[Borisz]

Increased activity of coin transaction will just make coin less available in circulation, thus raise its value. The more you attack the network, the stronger it grows, it absorbs all the energy that fed into it

I would consider the reduced speed of the network and the increased fees as a negative effect. Its kind of like saying that the frozen bank accounts in Greece have higher value because there is less money in circulation. I don't think this is the way to increase the value of a currency/asset. Not by a attack by any means.

Also the price hasn't sky-rocketed either due to the spam. Its a bit higher yes, but
1. Is the slight increase in price actually due to the spam?
2. Will it last?
3. Is it worth it to have it at the cost of increased fees and longer transaction times?

I would be happier without people spamming the network.

[Amph]

govt, nsa, etc. .. big banks. Almost anyone 'big' has an incentive to take down bitcoin

they will end up losing more money than anything else, it's better for them to welcome bitcoin and embrace its technology, if they can regualte it and tax the shit out of it like some GOV are already doing, it would be a win win for everyone, maybe not for die hard bitcoin fan who want freedom...

[SebastianJu]

Somebody is burning money to cause this attack.

attack ?

We have milliards of SPAM email per day ...
Bitcoin will be no exception.

That's why, Fees algorythm in 0.11 Bitcoin Core can do the job.
But ... noobs ... don't want to pay fees.

They will learn.

There isnt only the Bitcoin Core. And besides, why should we raise fees because someone spams the network? Spam should be charged with fees and they spam by creating huge transactions. Should be easily chargeable. I dont feel well when someone can go and force all bitcoinusers to pay higher fees. I mean will miners build a group in some time and connect in order to force bitcoins to pay higher fees in order to earn more?

[Beliathon]

There could be many groups with an incentive to continue these attacks

Everyone alive has an incentive to attack the bitcoin network (wealth), and everyone alive also has a much more compelling incentive not to attack the network, because it's much more profitable to direct that same energy towards mining for the network.

It's basic game theory at work.

[monsanto]

There could be many groups with an incentive to continue these attacks

Everyone alive has an incentive to attack the bitcoin network (wealth), and everyone alive also has a much more compelling incentive not to attack the network, because it's much more profitable to direct that same energy towards mining for the network.

It's basic game theory at work.

I see no reason why this would always be the case. For example, how would every established payment system (1) have "a much more compelling incentive" to mine bitcoins? Maybe they'd have an incentive not to attack because they could be found out and get bad PR, but I don't know why they'd support the network by mining. It would seem they have a lot more to gain from attacks.

[turvarya]

There could be many groups with an incentive to continue these attacks

Everyone alive has an incentive to attack the bitcoin network (wealth), and everyone alive also has a much more compelling incentive not to attack the network, because it's much more profitable to direct that same energy towards mining for the network.

It's basic game theory at work.

This attack is easier carried out than building mining equipment that get's you anything from mining.
There are also people who just want Bitcoin destroyed, since it is a thread to them(banks).

[Beliathon]

I see no reason why this would always be the case. For example, how would every established payment system (1) have "a much more compelling incentive" to mine bitcoins?

Sooner or later their choices will be reduced to capitulation or bankruptcy, that's how.

[tl121]

Everyone alive has an incentive to attack the bitcoin network (wealth), and everyone alive also has a much more compelling incentive not to attack the network, because it's much more profitable to direct that same energy towards mining for the network.

Directing one's energy toward mining will not be profitable unless one has a low cost source of electricity or one has early access to much more efficient mining hardware than the bulk of miners.

[newb4now]

govt, nsa, etc. .. big banks. Almost anyone 'big' has an incentive to take down bitcoin

they will end up losing more money than anything else, it's better for them to welcome bitcoin and embrace its technology, if they can regualte it and taxe the shit out of it like some GOV are already doing, it would be a win win for everyone, maybe not for die hard bitcoin fan who want freedom...

Die hard bitcoin fans who define freedom as financial privacy and perfect fungible will find other solutions such as Monero.

Of course Monero allows compliance with all government rules as well by optionally sharing your view key.

Best of both worlds.

Bitcoin is resilient and will survive long term. There will be other leaders that emerge to serve the niches bitcoin cannot.

Smart early BTC adopters will hedge accordingly

[ransomer]

Everyone alive has an incentive to attack the bitcoin network (wealth), and everyone alive also has a much more compelling incentive not to attack the network, because it's much more profitable to direct that same energy towards mining for the network.

Directing one's energy toward mining will not be profitable unless one has a low cost source of electricity or one has early access to much more efficient mining hardware than the bulk of miners.

How about setting a limit to the miningsize of each operation. For example by geographical location.

Something has to be done to avoid economies of scale here.... it is in noones interest to see a mining monopoly develop.

[jeffthebaker]

One possible offender that wasn't mentioned are sidechain operators. A group like Blockstream is more than a likely offender of the current spam attack.

[pooya87]

i agree that this tests (attacks) on bitcoin showed that it is susceptible to these kinds of attacks and it leaves it open for more groups to attack it.

1. Established payment systems.
not for now, since bitcoin is not big enough to be any kind of threat to their systems. and still everybody uses their system or at least the big majority of people.

2. People who want to highlight a weakness in btc and force a change (i.e., larger block sizes).
actually i think this is the most probable group of people who are doing the attack right now and will be the motivated group in the future too.

3. The supporters/investors of a competing alt coin.
not likely. because no altcoin is big enough to compete with bitcoin and also nobody would leave bitcoin for an altcoin. also nobody trusts altcoin market as much as they trust bitcoin (both are volatile but altcoin price has much higher risk)

4. Bitcoin shorters.
doesn't seem likely but possible.

5. Bored billionaires.
if they are sadistic yes

6. Exchanges. Any volatility increases the income for exchanges.
i don't see how they can profit prom these attacks.

#7. miners
it is possible that miners are doing this to force increasing the fees in order to have more income especially since the block halving is near,

[Amph]

This is a Golden Ratio Attack.

They aren't doing this to attack Bitcoin.  They are doing this because it is profitable. They will continue to do it forever because it will continue to be profitable.

The EFFECT is an attack on Bitcoin.

They are creating an artificial shortage of bandwidth because doing so is profitable.  

Any miner who controls more than 38% of mining power makes back enough of the fees he spends on keeping a backlog full, that by driving up the price of fees for other transactions, he can make more money from legitimate transactions than the "extra" fees he spends.  

This is true for as long as the blocks are more than half full of legitimate transactions, so in the long run transaction fees will approach that point.  Whatever people will pay for half a megabyte of "real" transactions per block,

There is a miner who controls more than 38% of the hashing power.  Therefore we will have a backlog of transactions to force fees higher for as long as that remains true.

Here's where I wrote more about it:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1125214

there is always profit behind illegit things not suprised at all

but there is a simply solution, stop feeding them with larger fees, wait more for your confirmation, they will end this scam eventually

i can't think of something else at the moment

[arallmuus]

but there is a simply solution, stop feeding them with larger fees, wait more for your confirmation, they will end this scam eventually

This is absolutely ridicilous. No one would like to wait for days just to get the transaction confirmed ( I assumed you dont as well if it is an important transaction ) and thus this spam will keep on encouraging people to increase the miners fee or else they would wait for days, It cant be avoided at this stages and the miners fee will keep be increased to ensure transaction gets confirmed faster. The golden ratio attack may sounds like a conspiracy theories however it is possible to do so if you read it thoroughly

P.S : waiting for the complete math for the golden ratio attack

[Amph]

but there is a simply solution, stop feeding them with larger fees, wait more for your confirmation, they will end this scam eventually

This is absolutely ridicilous. No one would like to wait for days just to get the transaction confirmed ( I assumed you dont as well if it is an important transaction ) and thus this spam will keep on encouraging people to increase the miners fee or else they would wait for days, It cant be avoided at this stages and the miners fee will keep be increased to ensure transaction gets confirmed faster. The golden ratio attack may sounds like a conspiracy theories however it is possible to do so if you read it thoroughly

P.S : waiting for the complete math for the golden ratio attack

until now i didn't faced any delay with any TX that i've done in the past few days, and i'm using the standard fee, many are using the customizable fee of 1k or less and many other are using the automatic fee, which is not good for now

there are some cases with high fee and long delay but they are the minority, isolated cases, one could thing that the reason behind those cases is not only this scam attack, but it could be related to misfortune about the average time for resolving a block

[acquafredda]

Increased activity of coin transaction will just make coin less available in circulation, thus raise its value. The more you attack the network, the stronger it grows, it absorbs all the energy that fed into it

I would consider the reduced speed of the network and the increased fees as a negative effect. Its kind of like saying that the frozen bank accounts in Greece have higher value because there is less money in circulation. I don't think this is the way to increase the value of a currency/asset. Not by a attack by any means.

Also the price hasn't sky-rocketed either due to the spam. Its a bit higher yes, but
1. Is the slight increase in price actually due to the spam?
2. Will it last?
3. Is it worth it to have it at the cost of increased fees and longer transaction times?

I would be happier without people spamming the network.

I definitely agree with you.

I chose BTC over fiat money since I believed (I was wrong) that it can't be controlled. But, as far as I can see it can be controlled by something or someone who has enough power to control it.

It's like being against banks again.

This is such pity my friends.

[Jhacker]

My #1 guess would be the big banks. Although not many will talk openly about it, they all know that bitcoin threatens their entire industry, which rakes in billions of dollars by investing OPM (Other People's Money). The only reason banks have so much money and power is because they are the financial "gatekeepers" so to speak. They control everyone's savings, loans, investments, etc. and exploit this for huge profits. No central gatekeeping, no money for banks. They are also corrupt as heck and will not bat an eyelash at buying off governments, bribing people, etc. to keep the big bucks flowing. Some of this got exposed in the 2008 crash, but big players like Goldman Sachs, BofA, CitiBank, JP Morgan Chase, etc. are still around. An attack on the bitcoin network would be trivial for them, and well worth their investments.

I don't think anybody that profits from bitcoin, such as Chinese miners, would conduct an ongoing attack. The short term gains are not worth the long term bad publicity, lack of adoption, etc. They need more people to use bitcoin, not less.

The only other possibility is a government, perhaps US (NSA) or China. Bitcoin also threatens fiat, which is the source of any government's power. They can simply print money to execute their programs when people use fiat.

Always follow the money and look at what big interests are threatened.

[BIT-Sharon]

Why are they so aggressive? If bitcoin harms their benefit, it can also have the power to bring them benefits.