What if China wants to takeover bitcoin? (Assuming controllable majority of hash

[btc123thatthere]

Hope this is in the right forum section.

Was just watching https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45Ac-5y2ofg and wanted to hear your opinions on China having 'over 90% of the hash rate'.

If they wanted to abuse this, how far could they get?

What role would full nodes play in defence?

Thanks

[AGD]

If 'China' (you probably mean the chinese government) wants to 'takeover Bitcoin' (whatever that means...) they will quickly learn, that this operation will cost them billions of USD and the result will most likely be another shitcoin fork instead of a 'takeover'. Guys will say 'Oooops! Didn't work' and they will kick a sack of rice.

[Oshosondy]

How can China take over bitcoin, just take it that bitcoin is not a centralized currency, it is decentralized. Although, China has the high bitcoin miners but that does not mean they will take over bitcoin, it is not possible. People will only want to say what may not happen or what can possibly happen in the future, but as for bitcoin, no country can take over bitcoin, it is decentralized and open source and getting adoption from all over the world

[mk4]

The common misconception has always been Chinese mining pools = miners; as if miners couldn't switch to a different mining pool whenever they want to. That, and the fact that having a "takeover" over Bitcoin isn't just as simple as gaining 51% hashpower and suddenly they have total control over the network forever.

[btc_angela]

I don't think that China has 90% of the hash rate though, and I doubt that they are or at least Chinese miner are going to collude to take over bitcoin because it will cost millions if not billions or dollars just to do that. And there are no incentives for them, on the contrary, they will just destroy the business that they have established in the beginning.

[Upgrade00]

I don't think that China has 90% of the hash rate though

This site puts the figure at approximately 81%, regardless of which is totally accurate, the majority of hashrate is concentrated in China, especially when compared with other countries;

If they wanted to abuse this, how far could they get?

Chinese mining pools are favoured currently, so more miners from all over the world tend to join them increasing the overall hashrate, if there were to be a coordinated attempt to take over the network by the pools or the government, the minerscan always take their individual mining power out to another pool or mine solo, this would reduce the hashrate concentrated in China and with it their influence.

[bitbunnny]

I"m not sure that I understand what you mean by"takeover" Bitcoin and how that could be possible. By government, by miners?
I don't think that any of such scenarios is even possible and I don't know why so many are focused on China like enemy number one of Bitcoin or some country that wants to be Bitcoin superpower. I don't think that any of these hypothesis are true.

[Nalbo]

With enough capital and hardware, China can generate enough hash to do a 51% attack on bitcoin but the investment won't be worth as miners and developers can reverse and split the blockchain to bring it back. If anyhow they controlled the developers, anyone can still fork it to create another bitcoin. The coin that most of the people believe would be the real bitcoin.

[Tytanowy Janusz]

Hmm bitcoin has the biggest hashing power. Hmm if only there was a smaller coin that was already hit with 51% attack. That could answer your question...

F.e. the majority of shitcoins? One of the biggest 51% attacks that was done recently was ETC (what was ETC's third time). What happens? Nothing. You do a fork, you isolate "infected blocks", implement update to node (if possible) and carry on.
https://www.coindesk.com/ethereum-classic-blockchain-subject-to-yet-another-51-attack

[TGD]

Chinese Government seems not interested on BTC because they have fully control on it and they want to control and manipulate everything that's why they are pursuing to launch there own cryptocurrency. They will not waste money on things that they will benefit the most. They once the majority holder of hash rate before but decided to ban it anyway.

I don't think China is a threat to BTC.

[fiulpro]

They cannot take over Bitcoins , what they can do is : Compromise the security of Bitcoin network by taking over the mining farms and decreasing the hash rate.

There is nothing like taking over the Bitcoins.

What they can do is make the network non functional for a while, when that happens all the transactions will become easily hackable. You should understand that when this would happen all the mining firms with a bigger share would inturn increase their capacities and take over the decreased hash rate eventually.

- if china wok take over others will see that as an opportunity and work against them, this would inturn save the network but would take 2-3 days

[hd49728]

There is no permanent bond between bitcoin miners and bitcoin mining pools so that bitcoin miners can switch their rigs to other pools that are located outside of Chinese mainland. Chinese government can try to seize all mining pools in the mainland and take over those pools under their law regulations. Although this scenario, I don't think it will happen and the bitcoin community will find out consensus to get out of it.

This assumption has existed and repeatedly mentioned on social media since the genesis block of bitcoin. 2 years ago when I was a newbie in crypto, I was scared with such news but I have no longer feel fear because of such FUD after the Xi pump.

Bitcoin Jumps 12% as China’s Xi Embraces Blockchain, Boosting Crypto Sentiment

[Argoo]

While impossible to do, the Chinese government has little or no interest in bitcoin.  They are finishing testing their digital yuan, creating a legal basis for its circulation, and most likely will take measures to protect it.
 It is impossible to seize the bitcoins that are mined on the territory of China by the government.  In addition, the Chinese government demonstrates to the whole world that it solves problems in a civilized manner and therefore such gangster methods are excluded in this case.

[20kevin20]

It'd probably turn into a very bearish market dip first, and then, once Bitcoin gets even stronger, it'd strengthen its existence even more. The majority of the hash can be conquered, but let's not forget that Bitcoin's an amazing tech that can always be changed and forked. And as long as the majority of everyone else does not want something to happen, it simply won't.

Although they may own >51%, that doesn't necessarily mean they have full control over the network. There are lots of ways we could fix a communist party from taking control, even if that means we'll have to make changes we've never had before.

[davis196]

If 'China' (you probably mean the chinese government) wants to 'takeover Bitcoin' (whatever that means...) they will quickly learn, that this operation will cost them billions of USD and the result will most likely be another shitcoin fork instead of a 'takeover'. Guys will say 'Oooops! Didn't work' and they will kick a sack of rice.

Yep,the costs will be more than the benefits and the Bitcoin Core community can simply make a hardfork split Bitcoin Core,leaving the Chinese government with a pseudo-Bitcoin altcoin,similar to BCH or BSV.
The Chinese miners can be replaced by miners from other countries and the Bitcoin Core blockchain will continue to work.A decentralized system is a like a hydra.You can chop several heads,but all the other heads remain and even new heads will grow to replace the chopped heads.

[BlackHatCoiner]

There is no reason for China to do that. Assuming that they invest 3 billion dollars in the mining industry, what exactly could they achieve? Reversing transactions? It wouldn't be good for anyone. Generally a 51% attack isn't profitable. Anyone with the majority of the hashrate would prefer mining most of the blocks instead of reversing a transaction in the past blocks.

Satoshi had figured it out that really early:

The incentive may help encourage nodes to stay honest. If a greedy attacker is able to
assemble more CPU power than all the honest nodes, he would have to choose between using it
to defraud people by stealing back his payments, or using it to generate new coins. He ought to
find it more profitable to play by the rules, such rules that favour him with more new coins than
everyone else combined, than to undermine the system and the validity of his own wealth.

[stompix]

I don't think that China has 90% of the hash rate though

This site puts the figure at approximately 81%, regardless of which is totally accurate, the majority of hashrate is concentrated in China, especially when compared with other countries;

Those are the pool's hashrates, not the hashrate that is actually located in the country.
Do you honestly think the Czech Republic has more mining gear that the Rest of the world - China combined?

If 'China' (you probably mean the chinese government) wants to 'takeover Bitcoin' (whatever that means...) they will quickly learn, that this operation will cost them billions of USD and the result will most likely be another shitcoin fork instead of a 'takeover'.

Billions for what?
They can just seize mining equipment from all the miners in the country, seize Bitmain and Cannan, and simply use their facilities to produce gear at 1/4 of the cost you as a private miner in the US and EU have to pay for it.
And billions, what are billions for China if they see this as a threat? They offered trillions till now in bribes and so-called loans, what would be 2,5 billions worth of mining gear if indeed they see BTC as something that might undermine their position?

Satoshi had figured it out that really early:

The incentive may help encourage nodes to stay honest. If a greedy attacker is able to
assemble more CPU power than all the honest nodes, he would have to choose between using it
to defraud people by stealing back his payments, or using it to generate new coins. He ought to
find it more profitable to play by the rules, such rules that favour him with more new coins than
everyone else combined, than to undermine the system and the validity of his own wealth.

Satoshi was talking about a hacker, a single person looking for profit, here we're talking about a country that would have no other purpose than to eliminate decentralized cryptos.

Fortunately, their dominance is crumbling away and if they ever plan on doing this (which would be perceived by other countries as economical war) it might be too late.

[manfredmann]

 It does not happen or if they wanted to they can't win over the people that do like to invest in bitcoin. Mostly investors also do know how and when to invest. Even the current bitcoin system where whales had already dominated but small investors do know how to keep along with them. Meaning that earning is possible even with or without the whales around. They can pump up or dump bitcoin and you can play along with it.

[GeorgeJohn]

I don't think is possible for China to take over bitcoin, and is not possible for a country to control or take bitcoin as their own, I think what china wants to do is to adventure into btc fully some so what ever purchasing or importation of good and service via their country to be transacting with cryptocurrency especially bitcoin, because bitcoin can't be controlled by a country, and I think is not the objective of satoshi to think of invention of bitcoin.

[Upgrade00]

This site puts the figure at approximately 81%, regardless of which is totally accurate, the majority of hashrate is concentrated in China, especially when compared with other countries;

Those are the pool's hashrates, not the hashrate that is actually located in the country.
Do you honestly think the Czech Republic has more mining gear that the Rest of the world - China combined?

That was well stated in the website I linked, in previous replies to mine and also in the subsequent paragraph of my reply;
"Chinese mining pools are favoured currently, so more miners from all over the world tend to join them increasing the overall hashrate"