51% Attack

[Wind_FURY]

Don't be bothered by trolls. The Bitcoin blockchain is made up of people. Faced with an immediate threat, everyone WILL come to consensus, fork all bad-actors away, and make honest-actors out of them.

https://twitter.com/bitcoin/status/1225544194946555904

[dkbit98]

51% attack is not happening any time soon for Bitcoin but I see that Faketoshi is having big headache after his fork suffered one more 51% attack, after four happened in month of July.
Listen to this now, cost of performing this attack for one hour was only $5,001
Looking at bitinfocharts bsv hashrate chart looks like a slow and painful death to me...



I am not sure if this data is up to date and correct but it would take $1,509,919 to perform just one hour of 51% attack on Bitcoin network with 109,616 PH/s!
https://www.crypto51.app/

Another website claims that cheapest hardware cost for performing 51% attack on Bitcoin would be $19,158,042,714, and the attack would consume 263,423,087 kWh or $13,171,154 per day!
https://gobitcoin.io/tools/cost-51-attack/

[BlackHatCoiner]

I am not sure if this data is up to date and correct but it would take $1,509,919 to perform just one hour of 51% attack on Bitcoin network with 109,616 PH/s!

Another website claims that cheapest hardware cost for performing 51% attack on Bitcoin would be $19,158,042,714, and the attack would consume 263,423,087 kWh or $13,171,154 per day!!

Obviously there are lots of factors that I'm not sure these sites have counted. That's probably why the first one has calculated $1,5M for one hour while the other $541k, both just for the electricity I guess. But, these numbers correspond to a person, mad enough to allocate the required hardware & electricity and spend those millions for an attack.

They do not correspond to an attack from a pool that already owns a great amount of the hashrate. For example, assuming that BTC.com has gathered 23% of the hashrate, it'll “only” need 28% more to accomplish it.

[Pmalek]

51% attack is not happening any time soon for Bitcoin but I see that Faketoshi is having big headache after his fork suffered one more 51% attack, after four happened in month of July.

It's interesting to see that it hasn't significantly affected the price (a slight drop of 4-5%), although it's being reported that BSV has lost around 50% of its hashrate the day before the reorg. Although that can't be confirmed.

The reorg began on Tuesday according to a few sources. It seems like the attack was 100 blocks deep and affected hundred thousands of transactions. There are conflicting info and another source claims the reorg was only 14 blocks deep.

[stompix]

Another website claims that cheapest hardware cost for performing 51% attack on Bitcoin would be $19,158,042,714, and the attack would consume 263,423,087 kWh or $13,171,154 per day!
https://gobitcoin.io/tools/cost-51-attack/

AntMiner S9   2,400$   14,000 GHash/s   1375 W

$2400 an S9? When was the last time they've updated that, 2017? You could get them right now between 300-400 in China.
Besides, even if you go for new gear like the S19, you get them at 10k, 4x time the price but 8times the hashrate.

Also, if you would go for S19, you would need 78m kWh, not 260!

Oh,:

By using the hardware necessary for such an attack with honesty, the attacker would earn ~918 BTC per day.

That website hasn't been updated from the last halving, a 51% attack will only get you 440 BTC (last 24 reward+fee/2).

[NotATether]

51% attack is not happening any time soon for Bitcoin but I see that Faketoshi is having big headache after his fork suffered one more 51% attack, after four happened in month of July.
Listen to this now, cost of performing this attack for one hour was only $5,001
Looking at bitinfocharts bsv hashrate chart looks like a slow and painful death to me...

<off-topic warning>

There we go, just keep doing this and blocking transactions spending from known CSW addresses and then you cut most of his funding for BS lawsuits.
</end of off-topic warning>

Does anyone happen to know which pools the 51% hashpower came from? I heard Coingeek had enough BSV mining operations to theoretically carry out one, it would be ironic if the attack came from miners using their pool.

[Welsh]

It's interesting to see that it hasn't significantly affected the price (a slight drop of 4-5%), although it's being reported that BSV has lost around 50% of its hashrate the day before the reorg. Although that can't be confirmed.

I'm guessing it hasn't had too much of an effect as most users are aware that such an attack is likely to only be temporary.

Another website claims that cheapest hardware cost for performing 51% attack on Bitcoin would be $19,158,042,714, and the attack would consume 263,423,087 kWh or $13,171,154 per day!
https://gobitcoin.io/tools/cost-51-attack/

51% attack is only something to be concerned about, at least realistically when the cryptocurrency is new, and hasn't got a massive hashrate. Bitcoin has well passed that point. Although, I'm not prepared to look the numbers that your source has provided, I'll just go as far as to say; it isn't happening anytime soon.

[dkbit98]

I'm guessing it hasn't had too much of an effect as most users are aware that such an attack is likely to only be temporary.

Oh trust me it had great effect, exchanges stopped accepting deposits and disabled withdrawals, there was multiple chains, 570k transactions got wiped from the blockchain, pools are
mining at different block heights, there is one chain bsvers now call fraudulent chain, nodes still don't agree that will cause more chain splits, Faketoshi got pissed. etc...

51% attack is only something to be concerned about, at least realistically when the cryptocurrency is new, and hasn't got a massive hashrate. Bitcoin has well passed that point. Although, I'm not prepared to look the numbers that your source has provided, I'll just go as far as to say; it isn't happening anytime soon.

Someone said that numbers from that website are outdated and that may be true so I would like to see correct numbers, but I was really just looking to find how much attackers paid to take over Faketoshi's coin.
I not worried so much about someone doing Bitcoin 51% attack when there are much cheaper way to attack it with fud, regulations and mainstream media.

[DaveF]

....
Someone said that numbers from that website are outdated and that may be true so I would like to see correct numbers, but I was really just looking to find how much attackers paid to take over Faketoshi's coin.
I not worried so much about someone doing Bitcoin 51% attack when there are much cheaper way to attack it with fud, regulations and mainstream media.

Well if we use those numbers or close to those numbers or close to them the BSV hardware = $19,0000,000 x .05 (percentage of the BTC network vs BSV) = $950,000 power = $13,000,000 x  .05 = $650,000 a day

On the other hand, if you look at what is available at nicehash and mining rig rentals you can do it without even buying a thing.

The most expensive bid I can find at the moment is 0.0133 BTC/PH/day lets use 0.015 because it's an easy number.
BSV hashrate is .44 EH/s lets use .5 to make a nice buffer and better math. so 0.015 * 500 = 7.5 BTC a day or about $300,000 a day.

So for someone with money, not much at all.

Yes these are all theoretical numbers, since once you grab that much mining from nicehash / mrr the price will go up. But I figured 10%+ over on hashrate and 10%+ over on price. Even if you wanted to go 50% over you are still only at $450,000 a day.

Anybody want to chip in for a test?

-Dave  

[PrimeNumber7]

This is why it is not a good idea to create an altcoin that uses the same mining algorithm as a coin that has a much larger hashrate. An adversary who wants to execute a 51% attack against bitcoin will end up seeing his equipment being worthless if his attack is successful, however an attacker who wants to use equipment to 51% attack BSV can use his equipment to mine bitcoin after his attack is over, and his only losses would be his lost revenue from when he was carrying out his attack.

In other words, BSV using the same mining algorithm as bitcoin means carrying out a 51% attack against BSV is much cheaper than it would be if BSV had its own mining algorithm.

Oh,:

By using the hardware necessary for such an attack with honesty, the attacker would earn ~918 BTC per day.

That website hasn't been updated from the last halving, a 51% attack will only get you 440 BTC (last 24 reward+fee/2).

The real money to be made from 51% attacks comes from the potential for double-spends, and from the financial markets. Someone who is preparing to execute a 51% attack could sell the ability to double-spend specific transactions ahead of time. They could also place bearish bets against a coin they are about to 51% attack before they start the attack with the advance knowledge the price will likely fall.

On the other hand, if you look at what is available at nicehash and mining rig rentals you can do it without even buying a thing.

The most expensive bid I can find at the moment is 0.0133 BTC/PH/day lets use 0.015 because it's an easy number.
BSV hashrate is .44 EH/s lets use .5 to make a nice buffer and better math. so 0.015 * 500 = 7.5 BTC a day or about $300,000 a day.

So for someone with money, not much at all.
 

You have to factor in the block rewards you would receive if you were 51%'ing BSV, which is around $135k/day.

If all you are doing is preventing other miners from mining blocks, are confirming all transactions, and not allowing any double-spend transactions, the market may not notice, or care about your attack, and most other miners will simply stop mining BSV. This means you can, over time decrease the amount of hashrate dedicated to your attack.

I would imagine that mining all the blocks for a period of weeks, and suddenly stop mining on BSV would probably do a lot of damage as all of a sudden, the coin would have literally zero hashrate. You could even stop mining on BSV for a period of time, and when other miners start mining on BSV again, you could resume your attack, and prevent any of those miners from ever receiving a block reward.

[Pmalek]

I'm guessing it hasn't had too much of an effect as most users are aware that such an attack is likely to only be temporary.

I don't know. Coindesk reported that the attack begun on Tuesday morning and it was still ongoing on Wednesday. Not sure which category that should fall into in terms of the length of the attack. As dkbit98 mentioned, separate chains were created (I think 3 in total) and they can't agree which one is the 'honest' chain now.     

[pooya87]

I'm guessing it hasn't had too much of an effect as most users are aware that such an attack is likely to only be temporary.

I don't know. Coindesk reported that the attack begun on Tuesday morning and it was still ongoing on Wednesday. Not sure which category that should fall into in terms of the length of the attack. As dkbit98 mentioned, separate chains were created (I think 3 in total) and they can't agree which one is the 'honest' chain now.     

That's the signs of centralization when there is a single entity controlling the majority of the hashrate it will obviously resist having its own blocks be reversed. So they still stick to their chain to keep their block rewards valid.
In any case, it's about time someone started having fun with this shitcoin.

[stompix]

Oh,:

By using the hardware necessary for such an attack with honesty, the attacker would earn ~918 BTC per day.

That website hasn't been updated from the last halving, a 51% attack will only get you 440 BTC (last 24 reward+fee/2).

The real money to be made from 51% attacks comes from the potential for double-spends, and from the financial markets. Someone who is preparing to execute a 51% attack could sell the ability to double-spend specific transactions ahead of time. They could also place bearish bets against a coin they are about to 51% attack before they start the attack with the advance knowledge the price will likely fall.

I was pointing out the outdated numbers, not the amount in terms of $ in reward.

A 51% attacker will not care about the 24 income anyhow and somebody who plans to do this for gains enough to offset the cost will still hurt the coin more than it is worth it.
And for certain if he plans on buying gear not renting hash power, he will not buy brand new gear for that, it doesn't make sense at  all, you simply want as much hashrate as cheaply as possible, why spend 100$/th when you can get it for 10$ with old gear that is sold at scrap metal price. The difference in electricity consumption will not matter since you're only running this for a day, not to ROI. Besides, 5c/kWh, that's closer to consumer prices in some countries than industrial averages.

Again, there will be no attack with a financial motivation, it makes no sense, it will either be one to kill the coin or there won't be any!

Anybody want to chip in for a test?
-Dave 

Just let it die a slow painful and forgotten death.
The attack on that useless coin will do more harm than benefits right now, it's already isolated and not newsworthy, an attack on it will only lead to speculation about the security of PoW, we would have nothing to gain from this.

[DaveF]

...
And for certain if he plans on buying gear not renting hash power, he will not buy brand new gear for that, it doesn't make sense at  all, you simply want as much hashrate as cheaply as possible, why spend 100$/th when you can get it for 10$ with old gear that is sold at scrap metal price. The difference in electricity consumption will not matter since you're only running this for a day, not to ROI. Besides, 5c/kWh, that's closer to consumer prices in some countries than industrial averages.
...

Yes but with 2 or 3 generation old gear, your power NEEDS go up.
In terms of doing something like this, unless you are a major company, a government, or really rich, it's already going to be somewhat difficult to get a facility that has the power & cooling. Adding the need for more power & cooling is just going to make it more difficult.

With that being said, any of the big farms that were in transit, that have found new homes, doing this as a test before going live would be no big deal at all. BTC would not notice if 1/2 of 1% of it's hasrate came back online a few days later.

The real money to be made from 51% attacks comes from the potential for double-spends, and from the financial markets. Someone who is preparing to execute a 51% attack could sell the ability to double-spend specific transactions ahead of time. They could also place bearish bets against a coin they are about to 51% attack before they start the attack with the advance knowledge the price will likely fall.

You have to factor in the block rewards you would receive if you were 51%'ing BSV, which is around $135k/day.

If you are doing something like this you probably don't want any money trail looping back to you or your operation.
Just make that chain / coin useless until it goes away. If you have the money to do this and if my $450,000 number was accurate getting $135,000 back which although a non insignificant amount of money might not be worth it based on the risk / reward. Faketoshi loves his lawsuits. If the coins go nowhere, you can't trace who to sue. Although, it would be funny as hell if they just kept moving, splitting and combining them to make them waste time chasing them.

-Dave

[takuma sato]

51% attack is not happening any time soon for Bitcoin but I see that Faketoshi is having big headache after his fork suffered one more 51% attack, after four happened in month of July.
Listen to this now, cost of performing this attack for one hour was only $5,001
Looking at bitinfocharts bsv hashrate chart looks like a slow and painful death to me...



I am not sure if this data is up to date and correct but it would take $1,509,919 to perform just one hour of 51% attack on Bitcoin network with 109,616 PH/s!
https://www.crypto51.app/

Another website claims that cheapest hardware cost for performing 51% attack on Bitcoin would be $19,158,042,714, and the attack would consume 263,423,087 kWh or $13,171,154 per day!
https://gobitcoin.io/tools/cost-51-attack/

The interesting part is that Craig Wright will probably threat people with legal cease and desist letters for those using mining power for the 51% attack.
This is the epitome of a failed project in terms of decentralization. When you can't achieve it technologically you attack legally. It's almost as bad as Ethereum.

[HeRetiK]

The interesting part is that Craig Wright will probably threat people with legal cease and desist letters for those using mining power for the 51% attack.
This is the epitome of a failed project in terms of decentralization. When you can't achieve it technologically you attack legally. It's almost as bad as Ethereum.

I cringe at how plausible and easily imaginable this scenario is, but it also would be pretty damn hilarious.

It's quite interesting that despite everything BSV's price is still holding up and pretty much in lockstep with the rest of the market. Pretty telling really about how little fundamentals matter when it comes to altcoins.

[ABCbits]

The interesting part is that Craig Wright will probably threat people with legal cease and desist letters for those using mining power for the 51% attack.

Along with service (such as NiceHash) if the attacker use those service and BSV developer for not preventing the attack (Faketoshi already sue BTC, BCH and BSV for different reason).

You have to factor in the block rewards you would receive if you were 51%'ing BSV, which is around $135k/day.

If you are doing something like this you probably don't want any money trail looping back to you or your operation.
Just make that chain / coin useless until it goes away. If you have the money to do this and if my $450,000 number was accurate getting $135,000 back which although a non insignificant amount of money might not be worth it based on the risk / reward. Faketoshi loves his lawsuits. If the coins go nowhere, you can't trace who to sue. Although, it would be funny as hell if they just kept moving, splitting and combining them to make them waste time chasing them.

-Dave

Or the coins used to taint all address and strees the network.

[DaveF]

It's quite interesting that despite everything BSV's price is still holding up and pretty much in lockstep with the rest of the market. Pretty telling really about how little fundamentals matter when it comes to altcoins.

For a lot of them yes. This one is a special case, people who use it / believe in it really drunk the cool aid so to speak IMO.

Or the coins used to taint all address and strees the network.

Ohhhh, I like it. Make a pool, mine a few blocks, send more then dust to 1000's and 1000's of addresses, then start forking the chain. Wait for them to revert the chain again and block all coins that come from that address. Forcing everyone to use some form of coin control.

I guess they could also just target exchanges one by one and dump the fresh coins into one then another and swap for other alts. If you pull the coins out and they revert then the exchanges loose money. Sooner or later the exchanges will stop allowing deposits. The down side is they may bring forward more legal headaches then it's worth.

-Dave

[PrimeNumber7]

The real money to be made from 51% attacks comes from the potential for double-spends, and from the financial markets. Someone who is preparing to execute a 51% attack could sell the ability to double-spend specific transactions ahead of time. They could also place bearish bets against a coin they are about to 51% attack before they start the attack with the advance knowledge the price will likely fall.

You have to factor in the block rewards you would receive if you were 51%'ing BSV, which is around $135k/day.

If you are doing something like this you probably don't want any money trail looping back to you or your operation.
Just make that chain / coin useless until it goes away. If you have the money to do this and if my $450,000 number was accurate getting $135,000 back which although a non insignificant amount of money might not be worth it based on the risk / reward. Faketoshi loves his lawsuits. If the coins go nowhere, you can't trace who to sue. Although, it would be funny as hell if they just kept moving, splitting and combining them to make them waste time chasing them.

-Dave

While limited, there are ways to exchange coin between altcoins (or to bitcoin) without revealing your identity. Also, if you did something like prevent any other miner from finding a block that actually gets confirmed, it would be difficult to prove you were actually behind any kind of attack. If you make a futures bet, I don’t think there would have to be a connection between your bet and your attack.

I don’t see BSV getting stressed via a spam attack as it has a large max block size so any spam will be quickly mopped up by the miners.

[Wind_FURY]

51% attack is not happening any time soon for Bitcoin but I see that Faketoshi is having big headache after his fork suffered one more 51% attack, after four happened in month of July.
Listen to this now, cost of performing this attack for one hour was only $5,001
Looking at bitinfocharts bsv hashrate chart looks like a slow and painful death to me...

I have already posted in BSV ANN that their community should be saying, “THANKS SATOSHI”, after their developers “borrowed” Adam Back’s Bunker Mode Mitigation Scheme.

https://twitter.com/adam3us/status/1222461452310720512

They replied with memes, and some name-calling. Hahaha.