Goverment can literally destroy bitcoin whenever they want

[BlackHatCoiner]

I would like to talk in this thread about the 51% attack and correct me if I'm wrong below.

So let's assume that I have the 51% control of the network. I made a transaction that has been confirmed only 1 time and the last block is 1000.
My transaction will be inside the 999th block. What exactly I have to do in order to reverse that transaction? Rebuild the blockchain? Or building again the 999th block, then again the 1000th block and then I'll have to be the first that mines the 1001st block?

But even if it's too expensive and too unprofitable it's still possible. And I know that none of us would want that, because of the loss of fortunes (bitcoin price would drop). Some goverments tho, would want to destroy the bitcoin network and of course they can easily afford it.

Thoughts? Do you believe that goverments can control it? And please correct me if I'm wrong about the 51% attack, because I haven't fully understood it.

[eaLiTy]

But even if it's too expensive and too unprofitable it's still possible. And I know that none of us would want that, because of the loss of fortunes (bitcoin price would drop). Some goverments tho, would want to destroy the bitcoin network and of course they can easily afford it.

Thoughts? Do you believe that goverments can control it? And please correct me if I'm wrong about the 51% attack, because I haven't fully understood it.

If you are willing to spend $24 millions per day with the additional cost of ASIC you can try to destroy the network, then what happens, what is the final outcome by spending billions to destroy a network and a government cannot spent tax payers money to carry on an attack on a financial sector.

It was possible for a government or anyone when Satoshi released the first software back in 2009 and in the initial years even Satoshi did not want unwanted exposure until everything is tested and bugs are identified.

So the answer is no, no government will spent billions nor millions to destroy the BTCitcoin network.

If you want to know about the 51% attack in different crypto network, here is a site crypto51

[passwordnow]

It has to be an expensive attack so if officials in the government can see the benefit of doing it and are willing to spend that much, we don't know if they can afford to spend that much.
There's more other things that they can point focus to spend that amount with their projects than use it with an attack to bitcoin's network.

[Nadziratel]

I would like to talk in this thread about the 51% attack and correct me if I'm wrong below.

So let's assume that I have the 51% control of the network. I made a transaction that has been confirmed only 1 time and the last block is 1000.
My transaction will be inside the 999th block. What exactly I have to do in order to reverse that transaction? Rebuild the blockchain? Or building again the 999th block, then again the 1000th block and then I'll have to be the first that mines the 1001st block?

But even if it's too expensive and too unprofitable it's still possible. And I know that none of us would want that, because of the loss of fortunes (bitcoin price would drop). Some goverments tho, would want to destroy the bitcoin network and of course they can easily afford it.

Thoughts? Do you believe that goverments can control it? And please correct me if I'm wrong about the 51% attack, because I haven't fully understood it.

They can try! But we had a chance to experience very recently (actually a few months ago) what communities might have happened when they opposed authority. When Justin tried to take Sun Steem under his auspices, the community uncovered HIVE. So, as you said, they can try to do something using state power. But the community will always have an answer!

[MicroGuy]

Do you believe that goverments can control it?

Yes. They have a plan.

Keep the Bitcoin block size at 1 MB and move the bulk of transactions to LN node operators who instead of cryptographically proving transactions are exposed to regulatory KYC/AML oversight as custodians and transmitters of user's funds.

[BlackHatCoiner]

Do you believe that goverments can control it?

Yes. They have a plan.

Keep the Bitcoin block size at 1 MB and move the bulk of transactions to LN node operators who instead of cryptographically proving transactions are exposed to regulatory KYC/AML oversight as custodians of user's funds.

I was watching one of your threads recently. Well... I don't understand you very much. What's KYC/AML and who will move the bulk of TX to LN node operators?

[franky1]

imagine the current block was 630,000
and you had a transaction in block 629,000

to go back and edit the transaction(remove the transaction from block 629,000) you then have to rebuild every block afterwards

with 51% it would take a week to catch up to to 630k (1k blocks at ~10min each)
but whilst your wasting that week. the rest of the network was always moving ahead and is now on 631k
meaning your always a step behind.

you would need substantially more then 51% to catch up and overtake the main network and even if you could catch up and overtake. there is no guarantee that your chain would win and orphan off the chain history of 629-630k+ of the main network

miners 51% cannot change the rules. all that can possibly be at risk is 'empty blocks'/double spend (basically changing previous / deciding future transactions are in a block)

my personal node has a warning if there was a chain rearrangement of more than 6 confirms(blocks) and other smart devs probably have similar mechanisms to monitor the blockchain. mine and others have other monitoring checks like how many empty blocks appear. and other things that are not just the normal 'checklist'

[BlackHatCoiner]

@franky1, I didn't mean to go back a thousand blocks. Yeah that's almost impossible. Just to previous block, change one transaction and then start mining the new block.

[franky1]

@franky1, I didn't mean to go back a thousand blocks. Yeah that's almost impossible. Just to previous block, change one transaction and then start mining the new block.

true network:  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
51% attacker: 1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

attacker is 2 blocks behind.
remember the attacker does not earn the block rewards of his chain unless he can get the general network to accept his chain. which means more then just catching up and overtaking.
so alot of money upfront needs to be paid out to perform it. without guarantee's of returns

so trying to double spend a $2 coffee is not worth it if its gonna cost millions of dollar just to get 51%
to solve each block costs over $80k
at 51% you will never catch up

also if you took the hashrate of 120 exa
just to match the hashrate to have a 51% .. would need 1.7million asics of ~70t/hash
at over $1k a asic would cost over $1.7billion in equipment

[BlackHatCoiner]

@franky1, I didn't mean to go back a thousand blocks. Yeah that's almost impossible. Just to previous block, change one transaction and then start mining the new block.

true network:  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
51% attacker: 1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

attacker is 2 blocks behind

A 51% Attack refers to the act of intentionally building a new longest chain of blocks to replace blocks in the blockchain. This allows you to replace transactions that have been mined in to the blockchain.

This kind of attack is easiest to perform when you have a majority of the mining power, which is why it’s referred to as a “Majority Attack” or a “51% Attack”.

So I see it like this:
true network: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
attacker: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

Correct me please. I want to understand this kind of attack but it seems to be more complicated that I thought...

[hatshepsut93]

Some altcoins had 51% attack (in the form of reversing transaction) successfully executed against them and they barely dropped in price. Of course if it happened with Bitcoin it would cause some panic, but Bitcoin is built on strong game theory fundamentals - you need to keep spending money to attack it, so even if such attack happened, users would understand that it cannot last long, and their confidence won't be shattered.

You also need to understand that 51% doesn't give you some sort of total control over the network, it just gives you a control over which valid transactions to include in next blocks.

[fiulpro]

That is where you are wrong.
People can destroy government anytime they want .
Government needs to understand that they are not the ruler , they are the caretaker of their nation and it is a Preety big thing to actually be able to help everyone with .
Bitcoins and cryptocurrencies are again a remark for everyone that the power is in the hands of everyone and one should always take it as a responsibility.
Even without any middle man or centralized body one can function properly.

[franky1]

@franky1, I didn't mean to go back a thousand blocks. Yeah that's almost impossible. Just to previous block, change one transaction and then start mining the new block.

true network:  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
51% attacker: 1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

attacker is 2 blocks behind

A 51% Attack refers to the act of intentionally building a new longest chain of blocks to replace blocks in the blockchain. This allows you to replace transactions that have been mined in to the blockchain.

So I see it like this:
true network: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
attacker: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

Correct me please. I want to understand this kind of attack but it seems to be more complicated that I thought...

'to replace transactions already mined'
so if you had a cup of coffee tx in current block (1). and wanted to edit it you have do 1 twice which would be 1,1,2.. (you already had 1 then edited it before moving forward)
but if the current block is 1 and you wanted to edit PREVIOUS block(0)
you got to edit 0, then make new 1 which is 1 0 1 2 3

There's more, but I'm saving that for my book, "A Romp in the Hay with Satoshi".

so you know your not gonna get returns from your CSW investments. but hoping to profit from selling books pretending you went to a farm and dry humped a guy that told you a fake name..
sounds like the title should be 'confessions of a grindr user'

[moderator's note: consecutive posts merged]

[DoublerHunter]

That is where you are wrong.
People can destroy government anytime they want .
Government needs to understand that they are not the ruler , they are the caretaker of their nation and it is a Preety big thing to actually be able to help everyone with .
Bitcoins and cryptocurrencies are again a remark for everyone that the power is in the hands of everyone and one should always take it as a responsibility.
Even without any middle man or centralized body one can function properly.

^ Surely the government can but will they spend millions of dollars just to destroy a network where there are tons of programs and projects that they need to focus more and spend the funds especially this time of crisis. Probably if the government will destroy bitcoin and cryptocurrency it has no direct benefit for them it will just be a waste of time and funds for them. But still, the crypto world should not be lenient because there may be time for the government will really try to attack the crypto world because they don't benefit as well on us.

[Lucius]

Why complicate with a 51% attack or something similar? If there were a consensus at the level of the world's most powerful governments, the vector of attack could simply be directed over what governments have as their strongest weapons - laws. If Bitcoin were to be declared illegal, all existing infrastructure would be shut down, and without crypto exchanges and bans BTC as a means of payment, things would seem rather pointless.

Such a scenario, of course, is not destruction - but the relocation of Bitcoin to the underground, where it would be quite inaccessible to most ordinary Internet users.

[Natsuu]

That is where you are wrong.
People can destroy government anytime they want .
Government needs to understand that they are not the ruler , they are the caretaker of their nation and it is a Preety big thing to actually be able to help everyone with .
Bitcoins and cryptocurrencies are again a remark for everyone that the power is in the hands of everyone and one should always take it as a responsibility.
Even without any middle man or centralized body one can function properly.

^ Surely the government can but will they spend millions of dollars just to destroy a network where there are tons of programs and projects that they need to focus more and spend the funds especially this time of crisis. Probably if the government will destroy bitcoin and cryptocurrency it has no direct benefit for them it will just be a waste of time and funds for them. But still, the crypto world should not be lenient because there may be time for the government will really try to attack the crypto world because they don't benefit as well on us.

Bitcoin is  decentralized digital currency which are being used in online. And we all know that this digital currency coins doesn't have any people, person and company behinds it. It just always depends on its availability and stocks. One of the situation that may happen in the future is that the government has the power to control thr regulations of the said coin. I guess some of government agencies wanted to claim or to rule over the bitcoin and they always find a way ro manipulate it and to affect the price or product.

I think government can't destroy the bitcoin whatever they want and do. For how many years, bitcoin suprassed its value and meaning all over the world. Bitcoin became one of the largest and strongest coin in digital currency. Thou, it doesn't any people behind it still it makes itself one of the most improved coin in digital. Government will cannot do anything unless they will attack the directlt the person who are using it in order for it to affected.

[MicroGuy]

That is where you are wrong.
People can destroy government anytime they want .
Government needs to understand that they are not the ruler , they are the caretaker of their nation and it is a Preety big thing to actually be able to help everyone with .
Bitcoins and cryptocurrencies are again a remark for everyone that the power is in the hands of everyone and one should always take it as a responsibility.
Even without any middle man or centralized body one can function properly.

^ Surely the government can but will they spend millions of dollars just to destroy a network where there are tons of programs and projects that they need to focus more and spend the funds especially this time of crisis. Probably if the government will destroy bitcoin and cryptocurrency it has no direct benefit for them it will just be a waste of time and funds for them. But still, the crypto world should not be lenient because there may be time for the government will really try to attack the crypto world because they don't benefit as well on us.

Bitcoin is  decentralized digital currency which are being used in online. And we all know that this digital currency coins doesn't have any people, person and company behinds it. It just always depends on its availability and stocks. One of the situation that may happen in the future is that the government has the power to control the regulations of the said coin. I guess some of government agencies wanted to claim or to rule over the bitcoin and they always find a way ro manipulate it and to affect the price or product.

I think government can't destroy the bitcoin whatever they want and do. For how many years, bitcoin suprassed its value and meaning all over the world. Bitcoin became one of the largest and strongest coin in digital currency. Thou, it doesn't any people behind it still it makes itself one of the most improved coin in digital. Government will cannot do anything unless they will attack the directlt the person who are using it in order for it to affected.

Now we are making some progress. It's called the Lightning Network.

https://pricecoin.net/bitcoin/will-lightning-network-node-operators-need-a-money-transmitter-license/

[20kevin20]

~
Such a scenario, of course, is not destruction - but the relocation of Bitcoin to the underground, where it would be quite inaccessible to most ordinary Internet users.

It's still partial destruction as everyone'd get out of BTC the moment they say declare it illegal so price would crash. Altcoins would be in an even worse position and would crash to 0 way more brutally. At that point, I'd be in no interest to spend my 10BTC I've bought for $100k and - worst of all - I wouldn't even have where to spend it at anymore as it'd be considered illegal, right?

It's like declaring drugs legal in The Netherlands. It'd cripple the markets in a minute and only few would continue using it illegally, "underground" as you say. But overall, legally, the drug market would be over.

Logically, I'd say this move on the long term would make the "underground" price of BTC skyrocket while the legal markets would value it at $0 - as it'd be banned. I looked up a while ago whether drugs/weapons cost more on the black markets than on the legit ones to make sure I'm correct but found nothing.

[suzanne5223]

My transaction will be inside the 999th block. What exactly I have to do in order to reverse that transaction? Rebuild the blockchain? Or building again the 999th block, then again the 1000th block and then I'll have to be the first that mines the 1001st block?

Only miners with the 51% network mining power automatically have the potential to block and reverse transaction that already take placr but cant rebuild the blockchain.

But even if it's too expensive and too unprofitable it's still possible. And I know that none of us would want that, because of the loss of fortunes (bitcoin price would drop). Some goverments tho, would want to destroy the bitcoin network and of course they can easily afford it.

Thoughts? Do you believe that goverments can control it? And please correct me if I'm wrong about the 51% attack, because I haven't fully understood it.

The government already have a lot of situation that needed money rather than wasting billions of dollars in 51% attack on bitcoin. The cost to have the 51% mining power is more than you think and if it that simple they would have end bitcoin instead of causing panic then before the KYC/AML was implemented.

[MicroGuy]

My transaction will be inside the 999th block. What exactly I have to do in order to reverse that transaction? Rebuild the blockchain? Or building again the 999th block, then again the 1000th block and then I'll have to be the first that mines the 1001st block?

Only miners with the 51% network mining power automatically have the potential to block and reverse transaction that already take placr but cant rebuild the blockchain.

But even if it's too expensive and too unprofitable it's still possible. And I know that none of us would want that, because of the loss of fortunes (bitcoin price would drop). Some goverments tho, would want to destroy the bitcoin network and of course they can easily afford it.

Thoughts? Do you believe that goverments can control it? And please correct me if I'm wrong about the 51% attack, because I haven't fully understood it.

The government already have a lot of situation that needed money rather than wasting billions of dollars in 51% attack on bitcoin. The cost to have the 51% mining power is more than you think and if it that simple they would have end bitcoin instead of causing panic then before the KYC/AML was implemented.

This makes sense. Secretly co-opting the network (rather than directly attacking) was much more cost efficient. And effective.