Too late for 51% attack

[KiaKia]

Three biggest mining cools can come together to cause a 51% attack, since they are all centralised, I don't say this, it came from a long time friend who I just got his contact back, I am wondering how many people have this mindset as well.

I know this is invalid because

Massive Pools doesn't own all available hashrates on their pools.
Just because three pools can come together to cause an attack doesn't mean it's possible.

It's true that three pools have the biggest mining hashrate shares online but those hashrates belongs to different miners around the world, if you have this in mind it's a wrong information.

Oh, I may be wrong and it's why I want to talk about it here.

[Aanuoluwatofunmi]

I like the way you also presented the direct answer to your question because hash rate is not centralized and cannot be found with only few selected mining pools, a lot have been discussed already about 51% attack and this is not possible with bitcoin network due to the protocols that guides Bitcoin network, there is more we need to understand about decentralization on this regard, but just know that 51% attack is not possible.

[BlackBoss_]

Three biggest mining cools can come together to cause a 51% attack, since they are all centralised, I don't say this, it came from a long time friend who I just got his contact back, I am wondering how many people have this mindset as well.

I know this is invalid because

Massive Pools doesn't own all available hashrates on their pools.
Just because three pools can come together to cause an attack doesn't mean it's possible.

It's true that three pools have the biggest mining hashrate shares online but those hashrates belongs to different miners around the world, if you have this in mind it's a wrong information.

Bitcoin Mining History.

It is not new and you can read it in my topic in which you can get more information and some documents, reports for further reading. It's not a first time there are two or three big mining pools that can combine their mining hashrate together to attack Bitcoin network 51%. There was time big mining pools had very close relationships but they have never made such 51% attacks.

It's simply explainable that such attacks won't bring any benefit to them while they can get a lot of profit by continue mining.

[stompix]

It's true that three pools have the biggest mining hashrate shares online but those hashrates belongs to different miners around the world, if you have this in mind it's a wrong information.

The pools are not the problem; centralized miners might be in the far far far away future but for different reasons.
The difference is that with pools miners can switch to a different one and leave the attackers with zero hashrate.
Miners attacking the network, well, you have no way of shutting them down, nor do you have the time to go out and buy miners and plug them to get control back.

Fortunately enough:
- the top 15 biggest public miners hold just 30% of the hashrate
- most of them are public companies that would not pull such a stunt since all their board will get into trouble
- there is no incentive for miners to attack the chain now, this is ten times worse than killing the goose that lays the golden eggs.

a lot have been discussed already about 51% attack and this is not possible with bitcoin network due to the protocols that guides Bitcoin network, there is more we need to understand about decentralization on this regard, but just know that 51% attack is not possible.

This is false, there is nothing in the protocol that stops a 51% attack from happening.

[buwaytress]

Not sure I can add any more value to an old horse that died so long ago no one remembers where it's buried... but, to all who bring this up, don't think about the possiblity (everything is possible) and don't think about the likelihood (never a zero chance of anything happening) but think about "to what end?".

What could a 51% attack possibly gain for its instigators? What could be enough to cover the financial cost of that?

Then you realise a few things and understand this isn't happening, and if it does, it won't have lasting repercussions on the good actors.

[_act_]

What I know is that the bitcoin mining pools are only looking for profit from their bitcoin mining business, so they can not go for 51% attack which at the end, they will be the one losing.

Another thing is that not only the mining pools have the power, the miners that join their pools also have the power. If 51% attack is carried out by them, the miners that joined their pool will leave them, making the pools to only lose after losing their customers and not having the 51% attack capacity anymore.

[BlackHatCoiner]

Your friend is confusing pool operators with actual miners. If the top pools tried to collude, individual ASIC miners would notice and just switch their stratum to another pool within minutes.

Plus, attempting such attack would instantly tank the Bitcoin's price, making their own massive mining operations unprofitable. Satoshi knew something about economic incentives.

[Alpha Marine]

I don't think the three biggest mining pools hold up to 50% of the network's hash rate, so it won't be possible even if they come together for that mission.
But let's assume they have enough mining pools to control the network's hashrate, why would they want to do that? Why would they want to destroy where they make money from while spending a shit ton of money to do it?

a lot have been discussed already about 51% attack and this is not possible with bitcoin network due to the protocols that guides Bitcoin network, there is more we need to understand about decentralization on this regard, but just know that 51% attack is not possible.

When you say "it's not possible", then you're wrong. It is theoretically possible, but practically unrealistic. This has been discussed multiple times on the forum.
What you should know is that, aside from being practically unrealistic, financially, it is also unrealistic.
For a 51% attack to be possible, the person needs billions worth of hardware and control more than half of the mining pools to control the majority of Bitcoin's network hashrate. Even though you somehow have the money, it is not profitable because you would just lose and gain nothing.

[PrivacyG]

What would the point of a 51 percent attack be anyway?  If the Government owned the majority of the hash rate then they would maybe have reasons.  And they own a printing machine too, so out sourcing more money is not that big of a problem.  But the majority of the hash rate is not owned by Governments and in this situation there is no point in attempting it.  They would hurt them selves with no benefit in the end.

Unless that was the actual purpose, which would be the equivalent of throwing all that money in a fire pit.

[hosemary]

I don't think the three biggest mining pools hold up to 50% of the network's hash rate, so it won't be possible even if they come together for that mission.

They do.
The three biggest mining pools are Foundry USA, AntPool and F2Pool. They account for approximately 24%, 18% and 13% of the total bitcoin hashrate, respectively. That's around 55% in total.

I got the data from bitref.com.

[Zaguru12]

What you should know is that, aside from being practically unrealistic, financially, it is also unrealistic.
For a 51% attack to be possible, the person needs billions worth of hardware and control more than half of the mining pools to control the majority of Bitcoin's network hashrate. Even though you somehow have the money, it is not profitable because you would just lose and gain nothing.

The lack of profit from the 51% attack compared to the amount needed to fund this attack is the reason why I would say it’s improbable because let’s look at this, what does one has to gain from it? In the past the misconception was a chain reorg and possibly double spending and that’s still not viable because you can only double spend your own transaction and also the chain reorg can never consist of invalid transactions because the other millions of nodes will invalidates that particular transactions so it’s financially viable for any individual to carry out.

As for pools it’s dead on arrival because other miners on that pool will just simply abandon the pool and go elsewhere. Or if all miners in the pool agrees then the other 49% miners will simply move elsewhere or stop mining if it’s not profitable for them and this affects the hashrate fast. Personally I think that if any of even the public pools try this they could even land themselve into a lawsuit

[Stalker22]

I don't think the three biggest mining pools hold up to 50% of the network's hash rate, so it won't be possible even if they come together for that mission.
~

You dont think?  Why guess when it takes two seconds to check?

According to hashrateindex.com:
Foundry USA: ~24% market share
AntPool: ~17-18% market share
F2Pool: ~12-13% market share

Combined, these three mining pools control almost 55% of the global computing power.  You can also verify this real-time distribution across active block producers via the Mempool.

[moneystery]

What we need to ask is, why would they want to launch an attack on the network when they're making so much money from Bitcoin? It's like attacking the fields where they gather their food, which will only harm them, as they are a business and have invested massive capital in hardware and electrical infrastructure. They also generate greater profits by maintaining the stability of the network. So it makes no sense for them to attack a network where they've invested so much.

[hosemary]

Combined, these three mining pools control almost 55% of the global computing power.  You can also verify this real-time distribution across active block producers via the Mempool.

What do you mean by mempool? Do you mean mempool.space? If so, you need to be more precise in your wording.
Mempool.space is a block explorer like blockchair.com, but mempool is where unconfirmed transactions are stored before they are included in the blockchain.

[Stalker22]

Combined, these three mining pools control almost 55% of the global computing power.  You can also verify this real-time distribution across active block producers via the Mempool.

What do you mean by mempool? Do you mean mempool.space? If so, you need to be more precise in your wording.
Mempool.space is a block explorer like blockchair.com, but mempool is where unconfirmed transactions are stored before they are included in the blockchain.

Yeah, I meant mempool.space. (I think context clues make it perfectly obvious what I was talking about.) 

But I forgot to include the link: https://mempool.space/mining

Thanks for the correction, though - my bad for being a bit loose with the phrasing!

[Mia Chloe]

Three biggest mining cools can come together to cause a 51% attack, since they are all centralised, I don't say this, it came from a long time friend who I just got his contact back, I am wondering how many people have this mindset as well.

I think people are missing the point of the existence of the 61% consensus rule. Fact is it's never too late to pull it off rather it's just uneconomical and kinda unnecessary. Everyone is focused on accumulation and money making and to an extent pulling off the attack is more expensive than the profits you could make from it if possible.

If the biggest pools sum up their hash rates it will surpass 51% which enough for a valid attack but the fact is it ain't worth it. If they did share subsidy it's still almost same figures mathematically.

[Alphakilo]

What we need to ask is, why would they want to launch an attack on the network when they're making so much money from Bitcoin? It's like attacking the fields where they gather their food, which will only harm them, as they are a business and have invested massive capital in hardware and electrical infrastructure. They also generate greater profits by maintaining the stability of the network. So it makes no sense for them to attack a network where they've invested so much.

In reality, one company doesn't control 30% of the network because there are different miners on board and the game theory of Bitcoin protects against such an attack.
The economic side of mining protects and weaponizes self interest so that people can remain honest and that's why the hash rate belongs to thousands or more anonymous individuals and the network just can't be trifflied with or else the pools hashrate could vanish in a couple of minutes with just a click of a button from some anonymous person who sees the plot on their screen.

[Findingnemo]

51% is getting expensive, the hash rate increased even if the prices are falling, which makes the 51% is even more expensive, but there is always a possibility for that to happen and one with an unlimited amount of money and strong hate towards bitcoin can do that?

Mining pools make money from the bitcoin, so it is not a convincing reason to disrupt the chain.

[terrific]

First things first, will they be able to cover the cost of doing a 51% attack?
AFAIK, it's going to be very costly even if they all combine their net worth.
Will they be able to carry on after doing it successfully? I think all of them understands that it's pointless and costly to do it.

[hosemary]

51% is getting expensive, the hash rate increased even if the prices are falling, which makes the 51% is even more expensive,

If you are talking about long term Bitcoin hashrate changes, you are right, but it may be worth mentioning that Bitcoin's hashrate has decreased over the past eight months and is now estimated to be around 25% below its all time high.
You can see Bitcoin's hashrate chart on Bitinfocharts.