Two new countries launches new currency respectively

[FCTaiChi]

I'm more worried about the future when computing power keeps doubling, making the work already done worth less every year.  Will we also be running up to a point where miners won't be doing as much work? 

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[Xephan]

I'm more worried about the future when computing power keeps doubling, making the work already done worth less every year.  Will we also be running up to a point where miners won't be doing as much work? 

It doesn't. As coin generation approaches zero, the value per coin should in theory increase since if bitcoin lasts that long it should in theory have a sufficiently established economy so becoming more valuable as people are aware there will soon be no more new coins generated.

If miners stop doing work because of the low coin generation x coin value, then difficult drops steeply to compensate so the network would still maintain the same block generation rate.

[a63ntsm1th]

...
Overall if a govern wants  to kill bitcoin, it's still a small investment to do.

Is there a thread essentially wargaming scenarios required to take over bitcoin?

searched "51%", "takeover blockchain" etc.  

[kjj]

...
Overall if a govern wants  to kill bitcoin, it's still a small investment to do.

Is there a thread essentially wargaming scenarios required to take over bitcoin?

searched "51%", "takeover blockchain" etc.  

Not a single thread, no.  But thousands of them are here, as each new person makes their obligatory post describing whichever of the 5 or 6 well known potential/imaginary weaknesses they happen to notice first.

Also, see the Weaknesses page on the wiki.

[Xephan]

As i noted above, its not the cost of the cards thats the problem, its the supply. Fixing the supply problem requires either months of cornering the graphics card market, or the infinitely more expensive option of building your own cards. No amount of money can buy cards that have not been manufactured.

If a country is seriously interested in taking over the block chain, why should they do it with GPUs? There is already a FPGA thread here and the wiki lists about 120Mh/s at about 20Mh/w.

Whole network is doing about 14TH/s so that would need about 12 million FPGAs equivalent and infrastructure to handle about 7MW. A country doing this would probably lay the design down into a single IC and send it off to one of the contract fab to produce, these don't need to be on cutting edge fab processes and so would be relatively cheap and importantly, supply isn't going to be a big issue because older process fab capacity are easier to get than cutting edge GPU fabs.

[nmat]

That 51% attack is really easy for countries/large companies. I bet that Google/Amazon could easily take over the network if they wanted to.

Regarding the official currency, do you really believe that a country like Sudan could have a virtual official currency?! And how would they do that? Give smartphones and free Internet to the whole population? My grandmother doesn't know how to read. Good luck trying to explain to her what a bitcoin is.

[kjj]

That 51% attack is really easy for countries/large companies. I bet that Google/Amazon could easily take over the network if they wanted to.

I think we would notice if Google or Amazon diverted enough of their power to the problem.  They have a lot of computers, but they aren't idle, they are doing things.  Profitable things.  Public things.  Things that everyone would notice if they stopped doing.

[nmat]

I think we would notice if Google or Amazon diverted enough of their power to the problem.  They have a lot of computers, but they aren't idle, they are doing things.  Profitable things.  Public things.  Things that everyone would notice if they stopped doing.

Yes, of course. It was a theoretical statement. It's not just "Let's install GUI Miner and we're good to go".  Probably most of those computers aren't even suited for mining... But they have enough knowledge and wealth to take over bitcoin.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

That 51% attack is really easy for countries/large companies. I bet that Google/Amazon could easily take over the network if they wanted to.

I think we would notice if Google or Amazon diverted enough of their power to the problem.  They have a lot of computers, but they aren't idle, they are doing things.  Profitable things.  Public things.  Things that everyone would notice if they stopped doing.

"Things that everyone would notice if they stopped doing."

Google: We once again apologize for interrupting your "search" with our daily brownouts. Google Search will be available in 3 hours and 47 minutes. In the mean time, enjoy the animated doodle of a Bitcoin mining rig.

Bitcoin: Imagine Your Potential

 

[Xephan]

That 51% attack is really easy for countries/large companies. I bet that Google/Amazon could easily take over the network if they wanted to.

I think we would notice if Google or Amazon diverted enough of their power to the problem.  They have a lot of computers, but they aren't idle, they are doing things.  Profitable things.  Public things.  Things that everyone would notice if they stopped doing.

"Things that everyone would notice if they stopped doing."

Google: We once again apologize for interrupting your "search" with our daily brownouts. Google Search will be available in 3 hours and 47 minutes. In the mean time, enjoy the animated doodle of a Bitcoin mining rig.

Bitcoin: Imagine Your Potential

That was funny but then it struck me chillingly, more likely than Google, there's another company that could hijack and derail bitcoin entirely.

Let's say I operate a fruit market and have millions of worshippers with stores churning over US$4.6 billion and now I roll out FruitCoin based entirely on the Bitcoin concept with a central authority and demand that my apps developers fruit sellers use FruitCoin or else they don't get to sell in my fruit market.

Given the size of the fruit market and the almost religious devotion of fruit eaters, the marketing flair of my fruit marketeers, it could quite easily take over.

[nmat]

FruitCompany wouldn't not do that. It's stupid and it's not their style. They make gadgets, not currencies.

[Gabi]

Why do you speak about BILLIONS?

It take like only 15 millions $ to do a 51% attack... a rich guy can happily do it without problems.

[wareen]

Don't forget that the network hashing capacity could easily be 3 times as high in a few months, so your hypothetical adversary might better assemble those rigs really fast.

On a side note: bribing/hacking/blackmailing slush & tycho would surely be the cheaper way to go (even if only short term effective)

[nmat]

On a side note: bribing/hacking/blackmailing slush & tycho would surely be the cheaper way to go (even if only short term effective)

I sometimes forget that there are 2 ou 3 guys in the world that could just team up and take over the network down 

[ttk2]

On a side note: bribing/hacking/blackmailing slush & tycho would surely be the cheaper way to go (even if only short term effective)

I sometimes forget that there are 2 ou 3 guys in the world that could just team up and take over the network down 

No, they could not. Any malicous change in the client would set off enough alarm bells that people would not upgrade and we would simply have to form another dev team. Bad yes, take over the network bad, no.



Goramit, did none of you read my posts on how difficult it would be to preform a 51% attack? You would need to build your own factory, at a cost of hundreds of millions, then build the cards (of other devices) at a large material cost (electronics do not have much of a profit margin, they would pay almost as much for a card as it would cost you, even with their own factory) and finally millions more for a facility and the power to run all these devices. This is already out of the range of any company.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

That 51% attack is really easy for countries/large companies. I bet that Google/Amazon could easily take over the network if they wanted to.

I think we would notice if Google or Amazon diverted enough of their power to the problem.  They have a lot of computers, but they aren't idle, they are doing things.  Profitable things.  Public things.  Things that everyone would notice if they stopped doing.

"Things that everyone would notice if they stopped doing."

Google: We once again apologize for interrupting your "search" with our daily brownouts. Google Search will be available in 3 hours and 47 minutes. In the mean time, enjoy the animated doodle of a Bitcoin mining rig.

Bitcoin: Imagine Your Potential

That was funny but then it struck me chillingly, more likely than Google, there's another company that could hijack and derail bitcoin entirely.

Let's say I operate a fruit market and have millions of worshippers with stores churning over US$4.6 billion and now I roll out FruitCoin based entirely on the Bitcoin concept with a central authority and demand that my apps developers fruit sellers use FruitCoin or else they don't get to sell in my fruit market.

Given the size of the fruit market and the almost religious devotion of fruit eaters, the marketing flair of my fruit marketeers, it could quite easily take over.

Since you played the religious card, this is as good a place as any to share with you my theory of what really happened on June 9, 2011. The mainstream media would have you believe that Harold Camping suffered a stroke on this date when, what really happened, he suffered a minor Bitcoin mining accident while building the ultimate GPU powered generator to control 51% of the blockchain. I look to seeing the billboards being changed any day now, instructing his followers to only trade using Bitcoin, because it's God's will.

To prove I'm not just offering up another conspiracy theory, Harold Camping used finite mathematics to HASH the Bible, and even factored in that his first bock may not be generated on May 21, 2011, but for sure will have 51% control by October 21, 2011, hence his hiding and not really being in a nursing home.

To further prove my theory, below is an image of the old billboard. All that needs to be changed is the logo on the left (already close to the Bitcoin logo) and the date. Feel free to Photoshop it, showing the changes, so that his followers would have a jump start in erecting (as in a phallic symbol) the new signs.