Wrong information about bitcoin

[Charles-Tim]

Although, I know little about 51% attack before, but I just want to know more and I browsed online today. Later, I found out these information:

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/1/51-attack.asp


This could have another meaning to the person that wrote this. But, this is just not right, people will think bitcoin has been subjected to 51% attack before, and of which it is very wrong.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/1/51-attack.asp


The article was Updated last year, in May 6, 2019. But this can still mislead people because the present bitcoin mining reward is no more 12.5 btc but now 6.25 btc. I remembered when I joined this forum, when I was a newbie, I read a lot online, but established member on this forum are always correting me before o_e_l_e_o recommended me to read mastering bitcoin. It was so helpful for me and I realized there are many misleading information online.

I still remember I read online that a crypto wallet is a software that is used to save bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. But I later knew that it is actually wrong, bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are not stored on wallet but on blockchain, wallet only store the keys.

My best wallet was coinbase before, I did not have private key and thought I have known a lot. Is this not ridiculous?  And all I read online is that coinbase is a very safe and secure wallet. But, not specifying on the fact that custodial wallets do not provide users with private key(s). With the fact that not your private key not you coin on blockchain.

This is to let people know how to be very careful of wrong information online, and that this forum has really helped me to know that, and that this forum is really helping people.

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[jackg]

Why would they think it was subject to a 51% attack before. I'm not sure if the testnet has been subject to one actually (or an isolated version of the blockchain from the start to check its reaction to it).

But yes it is extremely important not to just take some random articles m's word for it no matter how noteworthy the author is, especially in the field of cryptocurrency.

[Smartvirus]

I don't know to what extent the article pasted in the OP might be, maybe the author used his/her words in the wrong contest that defeats the message he/she wanted to pass across but then, here are my thoughts on the OP.

It's no doubt, miners earn the right to confirm transactions, add a new block to the blockchain and get rewards for it and that, the mining challenge becomes more difficult with each increase in miners. Now, this is a step to keep the coin in circulation in check (#increased difficulty with increased miners/block confirmation). I read in a post in the meta board on transaction fees:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2848987.0
So, upon seeing OP I asked myself, can this account for the increased fee as to confirming transactions some months ago due to congestion which recently got better or reduced, probably due to reduced number of miners as most cryptocurrency enthusiast don't fine it rather profitable due to the required gadget, resource not excluding power and the heat that comes along with it and a particular need to keep the system cool and running.
What I'm trying to point out is that, probably the author made the wrong choice of words by saying attack and make it look like the miners have a hold on the system which I don't believe they do though, miners are an important and inevitable aspect of cryptocurrency but then, the system works in it's unique way.

Again, it says the reward as at 6th May, 2019 when the article was published, the reward was 12.5 which I believe was right as at that time and it's now 6.25 due to the halving that occured recently as supposed. The system has been programmed this way to put the circulating Bitcoin in check as it was meant to be a scares commodity and it goes on.
But, saying it would drop to zero and making it seem as though it would crash is wrong. This is the system. Bitcoin serves the purpose to cryptocurrency what gold serves to fiat currencies. A measure of worth amongst other purposes.
Again, I might be wrong but, these are my thoughts.

[Charles-Tim]

Why would they think it was subject to a 51% attack before. I'm not sure if the testnet has been subject to one actually (or an isolated version of the blockchain from the start to check its reaction to it).

What the article is trying to convey is that 51% attack is possible on bitcoin blockchain, but the way it was conveyed is so misleading and inaccurate. Bitcoin blockchain with the hashes generated and the way it is generated that is not in a centralized way will makes it not possible as we all know. Which means bitcoin is not subjected to any attack.

I don't know to what extent the article pasted in the OP might be, maybe the author used his/her words in the wrong contest that defeats the message he/she wanted to pass across but then, here are my thoughts on the OP.

Exactly. That is what actually happened. The wrong usage can mislead novices.
 

[jackg]

Why would they think it was subject to a 51% attack before. I'm not sure if the testnet has been subject to one actually (or an isolated version of the blockchain from the start to check its reaction to it).

What the article is trying to convey is that 51% attack is possible on bitcoin blockchain, but the way it was conveyed is so misleading and inaccurate. Bitcoin blockchain with the hashes generated and the way it is generated that is not in a centralized way will makes it not possible as we all know. Which means bitcoin is not subjected to any attack.

Bitmain a while ago held more than 50% of the hashing capacity on the network - it's why they completely split into 3 different companies with different ownership afaik but they seemed to manage everything in a fairly reasonable manner and have since gone below the 50% threshold by quite a bit. It is possible to hold more the 50% of the hash power but expensive. And it becomes even more expensive if you do shady stuff.

[khaled0111]

This is why forums are way better than blogs when it comes to learning and getting accurate information.
On forums, users can interact with each other and whenever someone posts a wrong information you will see other members who will come and correct it.

Do not trust or believe everything you read online especially on social media platforms and make sure to browse more than one source when looking for answers to your questions.

[Bitcoin_Arena]

This is the second time I am seeing someone point out wrong information about bitcoin in an article from investopedia. It's a shame because have always considered as a good place for people to learn a lot of thing especially trading.

There's a lot of misinformation out there, that how newbies end up with bad wallets like Coinbase and Blockchain.com

[jackg]

Bitmain a while ago held more than 50% of the hashing capacity on the network - it's why they completely split into 3 different companies with different ownership afaik but they seemed to manage everything in a fairly reasonable manner and have since gone below the 50% threshold by quite a bit. It is possible to hold more the 50% of the hash power but expensive. And it becomes even more expensive if you do shady stuff.

Bitmain is the owner of the antpool, antpool has been the largest bitcoin mining pool at one time before, but they have never had more than 50% mining hashrate capacity before. You can check the thread below posted by tranthidung
I think you will like this good information about mining pools. No mining pool have

https://www.buybitcoinworldwide.com/mining/pools/

From that thread With ~90% of blocks solved by 10 pools, is Bitcoin really decentralized anymore?, I made this one.

Data source
Data I used here is total blocks found by Miners/ pools.

• Bitcoin block data available in CSV format

All time

Raw data

Code:

     +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
     | rank                       miner   blocks_total   blocks_miner    pblocks |
     |---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
  1. |    1                     Unknown         629697         245793   39.03354 |
  2. |    2                      F2Pool         629697          54080   8.588258 |
  3. |    3                     AntPool         629697          48856   7.758652 |
  4. |    4                   BTC Guild         629697          32935   5.230293 |
  5. |    5                   SlushPool         629697          32883   5.222035 |
     |---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
  6. |    6                     BTC.com         629697          29125    4.62524 |
  7. |    7                    GHash.IO         629697          23083   3.665731 |
  8. |    8                     BitFury         629697          19513   3.098792 |
  9. |    9                   BTCC Pool         629697          18027   2.862805 |
 10. |   10                      ViaBTC         629697          17364   2.757517 |
     |---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
 11. |   11                     BTC.TOP         629697          15368   2.440539 |
 12. |   12                      BW.COM         629697          12417   1.971901 |
 13. |   13                     Eligius         629697          11425   1.814365 |
 14. |   14                   BitMinter         629697           6464   1.026525 |
 15. |   15                       50BTC         629697           6392   1.015091 |
     |---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
 16. |   16                    KnCMiner         629697           6290   .9988931 |
 17. |   17             BitClub Network         629697           5672   .9007507 |
 18. |   18                      OzCoin         629697           4845   .7694176 |
 19. |   19                   EclipseMC         629697           3488   .5539172 |
 20. |   20                       Bixin         629697           3355   .5327959 |
     |---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
 21. |   21                   ASICMiner         629697           3127   .4965881 |
 22. |   22                 Bitcoin.com         629697           2444   .3881232 |
 23. |   23                    KanoPool         629697           2428   .3855823 |
 24. |   24                      Poolin         629697           2135    .339052 |
 25. |   25                    GBMiners         629697           2093   .3323821 |
     |---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
 26. |   26                       DPOOL         629697           1918   .3045909 |
 27. |   27                CloudHashing         629697           1824   .2896631 |
 28. |   28                   Telco 214         629697           1661   .2637776 |
 29. |   29                     21 Inc.         629697           1508   .2394803 |
 30. |   30                     Polmine         629697           1273   .2021607 |
     |---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
 31. |   31                   Cointerra         629697            870   .1381617 |
 32. |   32                MegaBigPower         629697            816   .1295861 |
 33. |   33                        OKEX         629697            802   .1273628 |
 34. |   34                      58COIN         629697            745   .1183109 |
 35. |   35               1THash&58COIN         629697            710   .1127526 |
     |---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
 36. |   36                  digitalBTC         629697            676   .1073532 |
 37. |   37                       Huobi         629697            643   .1021126 |
 38. |   38                        HHTT         629697            623   .0989365 |
 39. |   39                  Bitparking         629697            583   .0925842 |
 40. |   40                      MaxBTC         629697            449   .0713041 |
     |---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
 41. |   41                     BATPOOL         629697            441   .0700337 |
 42. |   42   Bitcoin Affiliate Network         629697            438   .0695573 |
 43. |   43                     CoinLab         629697            346   .0549471 |
 44. |   44                TripleMining         629697            333   .0528826 |
 45. |   45                GoGreenLight         629697            333   .0528826 |
     |---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
 46. |   46                       CANOE         629697            321   .0509769 |
 47. |   47                 BTC Nuggets         629697            293   .0465303 |
 48. |   48                 Solo CKPool         629697            243     .03859 |
 49. |   49                 Yourbtc.net         629697            226   .0358903 |
 50. |   50                bytepool.com         629697            202   .0320789 |
     |---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
 51. |   51                  ConnectBTC         629697            153   .0242974 |
 52. |   52                   NovaBlock         629697            133   .0211213 |
 53. |   53               BitcoinRussia         629697            127   .0201684 |
 54. |   54         xbtc.exx.com&bw.com         629697            116   .0184216 |
 55. |   55             digitalX Mintsy         629697            116   .0184216 |
     |---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
 56. |   56               Bitcoin India         629697            114   .0181039 |
 57. |   57                      NMCbit         629697            105   .0166747 |
 58. |   58                      CKPool         629697             86   .0136574 |
 59. |   59                      Mt Red         629697             77   .0122281 |
 60. |   60                 shawnp0wers         629697             72   .0114341 |
     |---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
 61. |   61                     8baochi         629697             51   .0080991 |
 62. |   62              ST Mining Corp         629697             48   .0076227 |
 63. |   63                        EMCD         629697             46   .0073051 |
 64. |   64                    PHash.IO         629697             44   .0069875 |
 65. |   65               simplecoin.us         629697             43   .0068287 |
     |---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
 66. |   66                 MiningKings         629697             41   .0065111 |
 67. |   67                      mmpool         629697             40   .0063523 |
 68. |   68                   Waterhole         629697             36    .005717 |
 69. |   69                     Binance         629697             35   .0055582 |
 70. |   70                      BTCDig         629697             33   .0052406 |
     |---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
 71. |   71                       1Hash         629697             30   .0047642 |
 72. |   72                       Eobot         629697             25   .0039702 |
 73. |   73                   HAOZHUZHU         629697             25   .0039702 |
 74. |   74       transactioncoinmining         629697             24   .0038114 |
 75. |   75                      175btc         629697             22   .0034937 |
     |---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
 76. |   76                     Bitsolo         629697             22   .0034937 |
 77. |   77               NiceHash Solo         629697             20   .0031761 |
 78. |   78                        DCEX         629697             19   .0030173 |
 79. |   79                     HotPool         629697             17   .0026997 |
 80. |   80                       A-XBT         629697             16   .0025409 |
     |---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
 81. |   81                   BCMonster         629697             15   .0023821 |
 82. |   82                Bravo Mining         629697             13   .0020645 |
 83. |   83                    Haominer         629697             10   .0015881 |
 84. |   84                     BTCServ         629697              9   .0014293 |
 85. |   85                   bcpool.io         629697              8   .0012705 |
     |---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
 86. |   86              myBTCcoin Pool         629697              8   .0012705 |
 87. |   87                      TBDice         629697              4   .0006352 |
 88. |   88                   Multipool         629697              3   .0004764 |
 89. |   89        Patel\'s Mining pool         629697              2   .0003176 |
 90. |   90                       BTCMP         629697              2   .0003176 |
     |---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
 91. |   91                     Nexious         629697              1   .0001588 |
 92. |   92                       7pool         629697              1   .0001588 |
 93. |   93          Tricky\'s BTC Pool         629697              1   .0001588 |
 94. |   94                   EkanemBTC         629697              1   .0001588 |
 95. |   95                    HASHPOOL         629697              1   .0001588 |
     |---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
 96. |   96                      HashBX         629697              1   .0001588 |
 97. |   97                     RigPool         629697              1   .0001588 |
 98. |   98                       UNOMP         629697              1   .0001588 |
     +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+

For specific years

• In 2009: all miners are unknown (32490 blocks found)
• In 2010: all miners are unknown (67920 blocks found)
• From 2011 to May 2020, please take a look at bar charts.

No that's true. But they sit into antpool and btc.com and potentially another pool which did control more than 50% of the network when we had a crash in 2017 and people started turning off their miners. I don't think it lasted long (a month or so maybe) but they still had a large amount of hash power.

I've seen viabtc be accused of being part of bitmain too, which, if true means they could have had substantially more than 50% for a while.
Not sure what happened to btc.com though.


PS i wouldn't say never, it was 100% by Satoshi at the first few blocks .

[tranthidung]

Bitmain is the owner of antpool, antpool has been the largest bitcoin mining pool at one time before, but they have never had more than 50% mining hashrate capacity before. You can check the the link below posted by tranthidung

Your data interpretation is not correct.

My analysis is for total number and corresponding percent of blocks found by different pools in specific years or all time. Total block found in a whole year, 2017 ie. does not reflect how low or high one company, pool controls total hashrates on the Bitcoin network. It is a very different data.

In the other words, pool with dominant hashrates find most of blocks in the period its hashrate is dominant on the network. Sure it is not a year timeframe. Definitely not if you are mentioning about dominant hashrate about 50%.  

But if you simply and naively rely on total blocks and percent of blocks found by one pool to get very raw overview on potential hashrate of that pool, you have to look into very narrow timeframe, such as 1-day, 1-week, or 1-month.

I remembered such FUDs back in 2017 or 2018, so when I have time I will come back with data for those 2 years and see what I can find from dataset.

[Cointikka]

This is why forums are way better than blogs when it comes to learning and getting accurate information.
On forums, users can interact with each other and whenever someone posts a wrong information you will see other members who will come and correct it.

Do not trust or believe everything you read online especially on social media platforms and make sure to browse more than one source when looking for answers to your questions.

In my opinion both are helpful.

An example why both are helpful:

A blog provides information about new technology to a user and forums help them in clearing the doubts. Information keeps on flowing without any issue. Hence both are needed for the information cycles to run smoothly.

[witcher_sense]

If your goal is to consume as much fake news and misconceptions regarding cryptocurrency in general and bitcoin in particular, you should definitely read every article publushed by Jake Frankenfield, "an associate editor for Investopedia, primarily covering tech". Look, what this guy has written about proof-of-stake:

What Is Proof of Stake (PoS)?

Proof of Stake (PoS) concept states that a person can mine or validate block transactions according to how many coins he or she holds. This means that the more Bitcoin or altcoin owned by a miner, the more mining power he or she has.

With Proof of Stake (POS), Bitcoin miners can mine or validate block transactions based on the amount of Bitcoin a miner holds.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/proof-stake-pos.asp

[o_e_l_e_o]

There have been times in the past where a single mining pool held more than 51% of the hash power. In 2014 Ghash.io controlled over 51% of the hash power, before voluntarily committing to reducing their share.

A couple of points about this, though. In July 2014, 51% of the hashrate was around just 0.06 exahash. 51% of the hashrate today would be around 75 exahash, so over one thousand times more. Further, a mining pool does not have complete control over every miner in that pool. In the event that a mining pool with 51% of the hash power suddenly became malicious, it would be in the best interests of all honest miners to switch to a non-malicious pool.

Although there has never been a successful 51% attack against bitcoin, there have been against pretty much all of its forks. BCash, BSV, and Bitcoin Gold have all been successfully 51% attacked.

[Pmalek]

I think he mentions Bitcoin for SEO reasons. He mentions the term 30 times throughout the article so I wouldn't bother that much. Bitcoin is the most popular or the most "common" blockchain available, so he is partly right about that, but tells the story in a very clumsy way. A 50% attack is possible in theory, it has never been successfully carried out, but the possibility is there.

I find the information this "author" has posted regarding Bitcoin's PoS algorithm much more worrying and misinforming than the article in OP.

[Charles-Tim]

Bitmain is the owner of antpool, antpool has been the largest bitcoin mining pool at one time before, but they have never had more than 50% mining hashrate capacity before. You can check the the link below posted by tranthidung

Your data interpretation is not correct.

My analysis is for total number and corresponding percent of blocks found by different pools in specific years or all time. Total block found in a whole year, 2017 ie. does not reflect how low or high one company, pool controls total hashrates on the Bitcoin network. It is a very different data.

In the other words, pool with dominant hashrates find most of blocks in the period its hashrate is dominant on the network. Sure it is not a year timeframe. Definitely not if you are mentioning about dominant hashrate about 50%.  

But if you simply and naively rely on total blocks and percent of blocks found by one pool to get very raw overview on potential hashrate of that pool, you have to look into very narrow timeframe, such as 1-day, 1-week, or 1-month.

I remembered such FUDs back in 2017 or 2018, so when I have time I will come back with data for those 2 years and see what I can find from dataset.

Thank you for the correction. I have deleted it for not to mislead people.

[hugeblack]

I respect the articles that are presented on investopedia, but I do not rely on them for technical advice, you should always not trust a specific person, but rather search until you are satisfied with the information, for example the most sites that give you credibility in technical questions are bitcoin.stackexchange.com and this fourm.

The attack by 51% is a purely economic issue and it is difficult to calculate them as constants, but it requires a lot of money to take place in BTC which makes it useless, but some small altcoins that have small hashrate that can be rented from a site for a few BTC are more vulnerable to attacks.

[CryptocurencyKing]

In my opinion both are helpful.

An example why both are helpful:

A blog provides information about new technology to a user and forums help them in clearing the doubts. Information keeps on flowing without any issue. Hence both are needed for the information cycles to run smoothly.

It might interest you to know that, sometimes or most times, having a bad foundation or a faulty ideology about a thing makes you unteachable. You won't know the truth when it's told to you. It's like, your whole time in doing that thing has been a waste. That's why we've got several pentecostal churches today. Breakouts because, they've refused to learn anything knew.
Take for example, if you ain't a celestial church member, you'll find it very impossible to go on bare foot for worship but then, they are very much comfortable with it because, that's what they ever known. Same applies to muslims, christians and other religions of the world.
So, misconceptions or faulty foundation in cryptocurrency can hinder all you need and is supposed to know.

[Harlot]

I don't know if I said this before but Investopedia isn't really a reliable source when it comes to learning terms or other parts of cryptocurrencies. They are great though when it comes to technical and fundamental analysis but when it comes to their crypto related subjects I don't think their writers are fit to create one since it's either outdated or just explained wrongly. Reading the forums and even Reddit posts are more accurate when it comes to the explanation of things.

[RapTarX]

Back in the day, it was possible to have 51% attack as there were few people mining bitcoin. Nevertheless, there are a lot of wrong information on the web. There are a lot of articles in Hindi and most of the times, they are never accurate.

I don't know if I said this before but Investopedia isn't really a reliable source when it comes to learning terms or other parts of cryptocurrencies.

Personally, I have never seen any issue with investopedia TBH. However, they aren't wrong here; they gotta update the information here.

[bitsurfer2014]

Its always good to have alternative references to a particular subject and we should never rely on just one source of information because there is a chance we might get wrong information to our disadvantage.

Well its evidently clear, Investopedia's articles are mostly based on finance and not on blockchain tech or cryptocurrencies. I guess we could find more useful facts on  crypto related sites that could give us more factual, relevant and useful information. GYIF.

[tranthidung]

I don't know if I said this before but Investopedia isn't really a reliable source when it comes to learning terms or other parts of cryptocurrencies. They are great though when it comes to technical and fundamental analysis but when it comes to their crypto related subjects I don't think their writers are fit to create one since it's either outdated or just explained wrongly. Reading the forums and even Reddit posts are more accurate when it comes to the explanation of things.

Investopedia.com is a popular site and they should do their review or peer-review process better. I doubt that they do have peer-review process before articles are accepted to be published. I am not sure how their editor board works ?

Newbies in crypto are similar as infant and their minds are empty to absorb new knowledge, new terms but if they absorb incorrect information at beginnings, it will be a challenge for them to self-correct, eliminate wrong terms and accept correct terms.

When a site, a person want to teach the others about something, it should be a correct lecture. Especially important if it comes from a popular site.

Wrong information shown by the media ?