is ASICMiner an 51 % Threat ?

[Subo1977]

to discuss....

[bitman442]

No, they would effectively destroy their own business and would never let that happen.

[empoweoqwj]

Only if they enjoy blowing up their own highly profitable business, think about it.

[azw409]

They wouldn't openly do it but they still could and not make it public. Besides even if they regularly and publicly exceeded 51% there's nothing in the software to self-destruct bitcoin - most people would turn a blind eye because they would have too much invested already to see it all disappear. Meanwhile ASICMiner would continue minting most of the new coins and become a monopoly that nobody could challenge.

The only way to prevent this happening is to modify the software so that miners could use either sha256 or scrypt to mine blocks - this will mean that GPU's can carry on contributing and it would be impossible for ASICMiner (or any other ASIC monopoly) to become a majority simply because even they could solve all of the sha256 blocks, the sha256 difficulty would get too high and then more blocks would be found with scrypt.

[bcpokey]

They wouldn't openly do it but they still could and not make it public. Besides even if they regularly and publicly exceeded 51% there's nothing in the software to self-destruct bitcoin - most people would turn a blind eye because they would have too much invested already to see it all disappear. Meanwhile ASICMiner would continue minting most of the new coins and become a monopoly that nobody could challenge.

The only way to prevent this happening is to modify the software so that miners could use either sha256 or scrypt to mine blocks - this will mean that GPU's can carry on contributing and it would be impossible for ASICMiner (or any other ASIC monopoly) to become a majority simply because even they could solve all of the sha256 blocks, the sha256 difficulty would get too high and then more blocks would be found with scrypt.

I don't understand the plan you propopse. How would difficulty be calculated in this dual algorithm bitcoin?

[bitman442]

They wouldn't openly do it but they still could and not make it public. Besides even if they regularly and publicly exceeded 51% there's nothing in the software to self-destruct bitcoin - most people would turn a blind eye because they would have too much invested already to see it all disappear. Meanwhile ASICMiner would continue minting most of the new coins and become a monopoly that nobody could challenge.

The only way to prevent this happening is to modify the software so that miners could use either sha256 or scrypt to mine blocks - this will mean that GPU's can carry on contributing and it would be impossible for ASICMiner (or any other ASIC monopoly) to become a majority simply because even they could solve all of the sha256 blocks, the sha256 difficulty would get too high and then more blocks would be found with scrypt.

They would not have to announce it, within minutes people would notice it and it would be all over the net. Just think of the bad press Bitcoin would get if that happened.

[Exocyst]

Bad press? You give the press too much credit—I seriously doubt the general press would understand or write intelligently about an ongoing 51% attack. Also, ASICMINER has been splitting it hashing power across solo-ming and pooled mining, so it is effectively competing with itself for blocks—although admittedly solo mining is on the rise. Friedcat isn't dumb enough to devalue BTC given that his whole business is built on mining BTC.

But I love your fear!! You better buy some more ASICMINER shares!!

[bitman442]

Bad press? You give the press too much credit—I seriously doubt the general press would understand or write intelligently about an ongoing 51% attack. Also, ASICMINER has been splitting it hashing power across solo-ming and pooled mining, so it is effectively competing with itself for blocks—although admittedly solo mining is on the rise. Friedcat isn't dumb enough to devalue BTC given that his whole business is built on mining BTC.

But I love your fear!! You better buy some more ASICMINER shares!!

No, they don't have a clue about it. What we don't need more of is uninformed editorials slandering Bitcoin. Also, I believe that as of today Asicminer has made the switch to 100% solo mining. As a side note, I have every intention of buying more shares.

[BitAddict]

No, they would effectively destroy their own business and would never let that happen.

+1

Why kill the chicken when you can have free eggs all the days?

[azw409]

So how would we know if they exceeded 50% ? They could have many solo mining rigs or pools all with different payout addresses from different IP addresses - I'm sure they have several different already. They could already have more than 50% for all we know. Once they have this, they can then start dictating the rules e.g. minimum transaction fees or your transactions don't get included, reversing transactions in their favour if they don't like you, dictating the exchange rate since they own all the new coins, etc. This is when a P2P currency effectively becomes a centralised currency but one without the benefits of legislation. Already BFL, ASICMiner could form an illegal cartel and who would prosecute them and under which jurisdiction. The beautiful dream of bitcoin begins to look increasingly ugly in this scenario.

That was why I made my earlier suggestion where to increase participation we allow additional proof of work algorithms like scrypt so that the few that own ASIC's cannot use their vastly disproportionate hashing power to the detriment of the wider users of the currency.

If you allowed both sha256 and scrypt, each with separate difficulties that allowed an average of 1 new block every 20 minutes then we should end up with the current situation of, on average, 1 new block every 10 minutes (since there are 2 permitted algorithms). Ideally, we'd want 3 different algorithms so that no one could get close to 50%, but having scrypt and sha256 removes the immediate threat of bitcoin being monopolized by unscrupulous ASIC manufacturers.

 





 

[mokahless]

What would they do with >50%? If anyone were to achieve >50%, I would hope for it to be ASICminer. Because I can't see any benefit for them to do anything malicious. So I wouldn't consider it a 51% "threat"

Don't get me wrong, having anyone at that point is a bit dangerous but it could be way worse.

[bitmateco]

They wouldn't openly do it but they still could and not make it public. Besides even if they regularly and publicly exceeded 51% there's nothing in the software to self-destruct bitcoin - most people would turn a blind eye because they would have too much invested already to see it all disappear. Meanwhile ASICMiner would continue minting most of the new coins and become a monopoly that nobody could challenge.

The only way to prevent this happening is to modify the software so that miners could use either sha256 or scrypt to mine blocks - this will mean that GPU's can carry on contributing and it would be impossible for ASICMiner (or any other ASIC monopoly) to become a majority simply because even they could solve all of the sha256 blocks, the sha256 difficulty would get too high and then more blocks would be found with scrypt.

thats a great idea. hope it gets somewhere! really clever thinking