Segwit is a 51% attack on Bitcoin

[ir.hn]

Remember when one pool (GHash) took over 51% of bitcoin mining?  Did you forget about that?  You thought to yourself; nothing to worry about they spit up into separate pools so they no longer hold a 51% mining stake.  What a nice thought, must be comforting.  But how do you know what they didn't just break up in the public's eye but privately they still work together?  Well there is no attack on the network is there?  Besides why would anyone want to ruin thier cash cow?

All of these are thoughts to help yourself feel better.  A 51% attack on bitcoin would be subtle.  Stealing coins from zombie (inactive) wallets so no one would realize it.  That is probably all they have done so far.   But they want more.  And they don't want to ruin the bitcoin network to do it.

Enter SegWit.  What we can do is remove the signatures from the blockchain.  This way we can change who actually sent the bitcoin if we want to...and get away with it easier than if the signatures were a part of the real blockchain.  This will make stealing bitcoin from zombie wallets easier.  Sally could send 100 bitcoins to Bob then later say that it was actually Billy who sent the 100 coins to Bob.  And if Billy forgot the password to his wallet, he would never know.  The perfect crime.

Don't fool yourself into thinking that someone who won total monopoly of a quarter trillion dollar industry would give it up so easy.  Wouldn't you keep it a secret if you had a monopoly on bitcoin?

https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/184427-one-bitcoin-group-now-controls-51-of-total-mining-power-threatening-entire-currencys-safety

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoFb3mcxluY

[1714172323]

1714172323

[1714172323]

1714172323

[1714172323]

1714172323

[fjtropepe]

That was 2 1/2 years ago. Have you looked at the stats today?

[ir.hn]

That was 2 1/2 years ago. Have you looked at the stats today?

What makes you think that pools would tell you if they are working together, or even if they are run by the same person?

[fjtropepe]

That was 2 1/2 years ago. Have you looked at the stats today?

What makes you think that pools would tell you if they are working together, or even if they are run by the same person?

How do you know that life isn't just a dream and one day you will wake up? Conspiracy theories are good for nothing. Once they are confirmed it is too late. Prep now and sell your bitcoin.   

[ir.hn]

That was 2 1/2 years ago. Have you looked at the stats today?

What makes you think that pools would tell you if they are working together, or even if they are run by the same person?

How do you know that life isn't just a dream and one day you will wake up? Conspiracy theories are good for nothing. Once they are confirmed it is too late. Prep now and sell your bitcoin.   

I'm prepping by buying bitcoin.  Currently we are inside a pump and dump by china.  Know the indicators to when china will dump and you will be safe to ride the wave.  In terms of the 51% attack, they will only target zombie bitcoins in order to protect their investment.  But in the long term, bitcoin is in shambles.

[fjtropepe]

That was 2 1/2 years ago. Have you looked at the stats today?

What makes you think that pools would tell you if they are working together, or even if they are run by the same person?

How do you know that life isn't just a dream and one day you will wake up? Conspiracy theories are good for nothing. Once they are confirmed it is too late. Prep now and sell your bitcoin.   

I'm prepping by buying bitcoin.  Currently we are inside a pump and dump by china.  Know the indicators to when china will dump and you will be safe to ride the wave.  In terms of the 51% attack, they will only target zombie bitcoins in order to protect their investment.  But in the long term, bitcoin is in shambles.

Pray tell the indicators.

[HeRetiK]

[...]

Enter SegWit.  What we can do is remove the signatures from the blockchain.  This way we can change who actually sent the bitcoin if we want to...and get away with it easier than if the signatures were a part of the real blockchain.  This will make stealing bitcoin from zombie wallets easier.  Sally could send 100 bitcoins to Bob then later say that it was actually Billy who sent the 100 coins to Bob.  And if Billy forgot the password to his wallet, he would never know.  The perfect crime.

[...]

The signatures are still stored on the blockchain.

They have been put in a block section of their own, but they are still stored in ohe blockchain, hence you can't simply change transaction signatures after the fact. No data is lost. SegWit is effectively a blocksize increase, even though the blocks still get treated as 1MB blocks.

[ir.hn]

That was 2 1/2 years ago. Have you looked at the stats today?

What makes you think that pools would tell you if they are working together, or even if they are run by the same person?

How do you know that life isn't just a dream and one day you will wake up? Conspiracy theories are good for nothing. Once they are confirmed it is too late. Prep now and sell your bitcoin.   

I'm prepping by buying bitcoin.  Currently we are inside a pump and dump by china.  Know the indicators to when china will dump and you will be safe to ride the wave.  In terms of the 51% attack, they will only target zombie bitcoins in order to protect their investment.  But in the long term, bitcoin is in shambles.

Pray tell the indicators.

China unviels the CryptoYuan.  China says that they will give citizens CY in exchange for their bitcoins.

[ir.hn]

[...]

Enter SegWit.  What we can do is remove the signatures from the blockchain.  This way we can change who actually sent the bitcoin if we want to...and get away with it easier than if the signatures were a part of the real blockchain.  This will make stealing bitcoin from zombie wallets easier.  Sally could send 100 bitcoins to Bob then later say that it was actually Billy who sent the 100 coins to Bob.  And if Billy forgot the password to his wallet, he would never know.  The perfect crime.

[...]

The signatures are still stored on the blockchain.

They have been put in a block section of their own, but they are still stored in ohe blockchain, hence you can't simply change transaction signatures after the fact. No data is lost. SegWit is effectively a blocksize increase, even though the blocks still get treated as 1MB blocks.

Watch the second link in my OP

[HeRetiK]

[...]

Enter SegWit.  What we can do is remove the signatures from the blockchain.  This way we can change who actually sent the bitcoin if we want to...and get away with it easier than if the signatures were a part of the real blockchain.  This will make stealing bitcoin from zombie wallets easier.  Sally could send 100 bitcoins to Bob then later say that it was actually Billy who sent the 100 coins to Bob.  And if Billy forgot the password to his wallet, he would never know.  The perfect crime.

[...]

The signatures are still stored on the blockchain.

They have been put in a block section of their own, but they are still stored in ohe blockchain, hence you can't simply change transaction signatures after the fact. No data is lost. SegWit is effectively a blocksize increase, even though the blocks still get treated as 1MB blocks.

Watch the second link in my OP

If there's a meaningful counter-argument to my post above please summarize it in a sentence or two, as I'm not going to shift through 38 minutes of video based on what seems to be a misunderstanding of how SegWit works.

[ir.hn]

[...]

Enter SegWit.  What we can do is remove the signatures from the blockchain.  This way we can change who actually sent the bitcoin if we want to...and get away with it easier than if the signatures were a part of the real blockchain.  This will make stealing bitcoin from zombie wallets easier.  Sally could send 100 bitcoins to Bob then later say that it was actually Billy who sent the 100 coins to Bob.  And if Billy forgot the password to his wallet, he would never know.  The perfect crime.

[...]

The signatures are still stored on the blockchain.

They have been put in a block section of their own, but they are still stored in ohe blockchain, hence you can't simply change transaction signatures after the fact. No data is lost. SegWit is effectively a blocksize increase, even though the blocks still get treated as 1MB blocks.

Watch the second link in my OP

If there's a meaningful counter-argument to my post above please summarize it in a sentence or two, as I'm not going to shift through 38 minutes of video based on what seems to be a misunderstanding of how SegWit works.

Miners will make more money by not checking the signature data when they verify transactions.  It is faster not to and you don't need to check it to post to UTXO.

[HeRetiK]

The signatures are still stored on the blockchain.

They have been put in a block section of their own, but they are still stored in ohe blockchain, hence you can't simply change transaction signatures after the fact. No data is lost. SegWit is effectively a blocksize increase, even though the blocks still get treated as 1MB blocks.

Watch the second link in my OP

If there's a meaningful counter-argument to my post above please summarize it in a sentence or two, as I'm not going to shift through 38 minutes of video based on what seems to be a misunderstanding of how SegWit works.

Miners will make more money by not checking the signature data when they verify transactions.  It is faster not to and you don't need to check it to post to UTXO.

Very much appreciated, thank you.

An interesting issue, but I'm not fully convinced of its practical implications as I don't see how this could be pulled off without triggering a hardfork due to non-colluding miners and node operators -- the very opposite of a subtle attack. But maybe there's more to it, thanks for the input.

[ir.hn]

The signatures are still stored on the blockchain.

They have been put in a block section of their own, but they are still stored in ohe blockchain, hence you can't simply change transaction signatures after the fact. No data is lost. SegWit is effectively a blocksize increase, even though the blocks still get treated as 1MB blocks.

Watch the second link in my OP

If there's a meaningful counter-argument to my post above please summarize it in a sentence or two, as I'm not going to shift through 38 minutes of video based on what seems to be a misunderstanding of how SegWit works.

Miners will make more money by not checking the signature data when they verify transactions.  It is faster not to and you don't need to check it to post to UTXO.

Very much appreciated, thank you.

An interesting issue, but I'm not fully convinced of its practical implications as I don't see how this could be pulled off without triggering a hardfork due to non-colluding miners and node operators -- the very opposite of a subtle attack. But maybe there's more to it, thanks for the input.

Right it would have to be kept secret.  Its like a parasite or cancer evading the immune system.  You don't want to evoke an immune response.  The problem is the protocol incentivizes not waiting for the witness block to mine the UTXO block so when you incentivize bypassing security measures, inherently there is less security.  Before you had to save the signatures in order for your block to be valid and process transactions and get fees.  Now you simply don't have to.  Its like verifying/publishing the signatures (witness block) becomes optional because it isn't required for the transactions.

[DannyHamilton]

A 51% attack on bitcoin would be subtle.  Stealing coins from zombie (inactive) wallets so no one would realize it.

This is not possible with a 51% attack.  There are limits on what a 51% attack can do.  Creating transactions that take bitcoins from inactive wallets is NOT one of the things that a 51% attack is capable of.

Enter SegWit.  What we can do is remove the signatures from the blockchain.  This way we can change who actually sent the bitcoin if we want to...

No.  You can't.

It is clear that you do not understand what SegWit does or how it does it.

easier than if the signatures were a part of the real blockchain.  This will make stealing bitcoin from zombie wallets easier.

No. It won't. Please take some time to learn about that which you fear.  You may discover that your fear is unfounded.

Sally could send 100 bitcoins to Bob then later say that it was actually Billy who sent the 100 coins to Bob.  And if Billy forgot the password to his wallet, he would never know.

No.  She couldn't.

The perfect crime.

Absolute nonsense.

Don't fool yourself into thinking that someone who won total monopoly of a quarter trillion dollar industry would give it up so easy.  Wouldn't you keep it a secret if you had a monopoly on bitcoin?

Absolutely.  And it is possible that some of the largest mining pools could collude.  However, if they did collude, they could not do the things you are claiming.  They could choose which transactions get confirmed, and they could reduce the number of confirmations that a transaction has.  They could also replace confirmed transactions that they sent with different transactions that they sent.

[cellard]

That was 2 1/2 years ago. Have you looked at the stats today?

What makes you think that pools would tell you if they are working together, or even if they are run by the same person?

How do you know that life isn't just a dream and one day you will wake up? Conspiracy theories are good for nothing. Once they are confirmed it is too late. Prep now and sell your bitcoin.  

I'm prepping by buying bitcoin.  Currently we are inside a pump and dump by china.  Know the indicators to when china will dump and you will be safe to ride the wave.  In terms of the 51% attack, they will only target zombie bitcoins in order to protect their investment.  But in the long term, bitcoin is in shambles.

1) Indeed, we can't know if all these pools are the same entity or not, and indeed, segwit (and im not an expert) addresses, don't make me feel entirely safe to keep big funds at.. which is why I just keep cold storage on legacy addresses. But it is ultimately a conspiracy. We would need to see hard proof of owned bitcoins stored in segwit addresses stolen to confirm it. All Core devs concluded that the chances of that happening are practically impossible, so if we actually see segwit funds stolen by colluding miners, it would be the end of Core and anyone involved in promoting segwit, and what's worse: The even bigger scammers (big blockers, Roger Ver etc) could seen as the ones that were right, when they are even worse.
I don't see how Core devs would risk their careers and possibly life by taking such a risk with people's funds. So I conclude that the segwit funds being stolen problem will never happen.

2) You or no one has no idea if "china is pumping bitcoin". Bitcoin is now global, too big, wall street is involved.. you can't time the top and you can't time the bottom, you can only buy the dips and hold very long term, because long term we are only going higher.

[achow101]

Miners will make more money by not checking the signature data when they verify transactions.  It is faster not to and you don't need to check it to post to UTXO.

And if they include an invalid transaction (because it has invalid signatures), the block will be rejected by all of the full nodes on the network that are verifying all of this. Even if they have 51% of the hash rate, the network will reject those blocks anyways. Nodes do not follow just the blockchain with the most work, they follow the valid according to their consensus rules blockchain that has the most work. A miner cannot drag along the rest of the network and commit such fraud since all other full nodes will be verifying their blocks and throwing them away if they are invalid.

[Delos]

I do not see any problem.

Only maybe constructed paranoid panic....

[KaliLinux]

Enter SegWit.  What we can do is remove the signatures from the blockchain.  This way we can change who actually sent the bitcoin if we want to...and get away with it easier than if the signatures were a part of the real blockchain.  This will make stealing bitcoin from zombie wallets easier.  Sally could send 100 bitcoins to Bob then later say that it was actually Billy who sent the 100 coins to Bob.  And if Billy forgot the password to his wallet, he would never know.  The perfect crime.

Segwit is the process of increasing block size. So its not possible to rearrange or remove the digital signature.
Blockchain is the technology which is connected and match only with digital signature of each blocks. In simple it like a book where it has page number to connect each other. It doesn't make sense if you rearrange or remove any page.
We can avoid invalid transaction in the block. Blockchain has its own character we can't write a new process apart from segwit.

[Kakmakr]

The risk in doing this, would out weigh the reward. Let's say it was possible and these miners have been doing it for a while. <unnoticed> and one day, someone notice this. Guess what will happen then. The coins they collected would drop in value or become worthless.

This will happen because people would lose faith in this technology and they will start dumping it.

Not a lot of things goes unnoticed in Bitcoin. <Example : ASICBOOST>

[ir.hn]

Miners will make more money by not checking the signature data when they verify transactions.  It is faster not to and you don't need to check it to post to UTXO.

And if they include an invalid transaction (because it has invalid signatures), the block will be rejected by all of the full nodes on the network that are verifying all of this. Even if they have 51% of the hash rate, the network will reject those blocks anyways. Nodes do not follow just the blockchain with the most work, they follow the valid according to their consensus rules blockchain that has the most work. A miner cannot drag along the rest of the network and commit such fraud since all other full nodes will be verifying their blocks and throwing them away if they are invalid.

What signatures?  They aren't in the UTXO, (the real blockchain, the one that matters and the only blockchain miners have incentive to check).