We're not going anywhere, until the 51% question is answered

[RodeoX]

If someone is scared of this then don't join in. We really don't need institutional investors anyway. Especially those who don't understand what a microscopic risk this is. 

[CEG5952]

I think bears are still hoping the market would drop on this 51% scare stuff (....this again???) -- wonder if they're right. No big moves yet....

[Bitcopia]

I think bears are still hoping the market would drop on this 51% scare stuff (....this again???) -- wonder if they're right. No big moves yet....

This has already been priced in.

A few newbs panic selling.

[sgbett]

and what happens when a pool hits 60% or 70%? no risk still?
never happen?

im not sure there is any point in you using the question mark when you write posts, because the question mark implies you are asking a question.

This in turn usually means you seek an answer.

And yet, having been provided answers to these and other questions you are still compelled to post, asking the same questions.

Did you read the answers to your previous question?

Did you understand that the more hashing power you get the closer you get to being able to control the block chain, but that the potential benefit of doing so is far outweighed by the number of coins you get if you just hashed?

Can this be put to you any more simply?

[Raystonn]

Did you understand that the more hashing power you get the closer you get to being able to control the block chain, but that the potential benefit of doing so is far outweighed by the number of coins you get if you just hashed?

As mining rewards are halved, this argument becomes weaker and weaker.

[Ibian]

Did you understand that the more hashing power you get the closer you get to being able to control the block chain, but that the potential benefit of doing so is far outweighed by the number of coins you get if you just hashed?

As mining rewards are halved, this argument becomes weaker and weaker.

Ah, no. It's still the same percentage of the total mining rewards we are looking at. And transaction fees will continue to go up over time, and those are most definitely related to how much people trust the system.

[Raystonn]

It's still the same percentage of the total mining rewards we are looking at.

Right.  But a potential attacker isn't interested in percentages.  He is interested in raw dollar amounts.  If he can find a way to get more money with an attack than with mining, then there could be trouble.  Add to that the potential for an irrational actor, someone with the psychological makeup of the Joker, and this isn't really something that should be ignored, imo.  The Foundation should proactively work on a solution.

[sgbett]

It's still the same percentage of the total mining rewards we are looking at.

Right.  But a potential attacker isn't interested in percentages.  He is interested in raw dollar amounts.  If he can find a way to get more money with an attack than with mining, then there could be trouble.  Add to that the potential for an irrational actor, someone with the psychological makeup of the Joker, and this isn't really something that should be ignored, imo.  The Foundation should proactively work on a solution.

I think the point you seem to be missing is: *he can't*

[Raystonn]

I think the point you seem to be missing is: *he can't*

Looking beyond the irrational actor argument, for which you haven't provided a counter-argument, the NSA could decide that Bitcoin is a threat.  They could have a team of hackers break into a mining pool that controls >50% of the hash rate and perform the following operation:

1) Transfer all of the pool's coins out to an exchange, sell them in small chunks for USD, and wire to an undisclosed location.
2) Initiate a double-spend attack on the coins that were sold, thus stealing them from the wallets of the general public, and causing Bitcoin to fail in the eyes of the public.

The Bitcoin Foundation thus has 2 options on how to respond.  They can either:
1) Leave the new blockchain in place.  Have an angry population that was stolen from.  Bitcoin loses confidence and dies.
or
2) Revert the blockchain such that the double-spend never took place.  Consumers keep the Bitcoin.  The largest Bitcoin mining pool goes bankrupt.  Miners do not receive their rewards and become disillusioned with Bitcoin.  Hash rate suddenly drops substantially.  Bitcoin becomes open to further >50% attacks due to low hash rate.  NSA repeats the operation until Bitcoin is dead.

Or... the Bitcoin Foundation could be proactive and fix this before we have an attack in the first place.

[kingscrown]

Just dont mine at ghash.io and make others not.
Easy!

[Raystonn]

I think the point you seem to be missing is: *he can't*

Looking beyond the irrational actor argument, for which you haven't provided a counter-argument, the NSA could decide that Bitcoin is a threat.  They could have a team of hackers break into a mining pool that controls >50% of the hash rate and perform the following operation:

1) Transfer all of the pool's coins out to an exchange, sell them in small chunks for USD, and wire to an undisclosed location.
2) Initiate a double-spend attack on the coins that were sold, thus stealing them from the wallets of the general public, and causing Bitcoin to fail in the eyes of the public.

The Bitcoin Foundation thus has 2 options on how to respond.  They can either:
1) Leave the new blockchain in place.  Have an angry population that was stolen from.  Bitcoin loses confidence and dies.
or
2) Revert the blockchain such that the double-spend never took place.  Consumers keep the Bitcoin.  The largest Bitcoin mining pool goes bankrupt.  Miners do not receive their rewards and become disillusioned with Bitcoin.  Hash rate suddenly drops substantially.  Bitcoin becomes open to further >50% attacks due to low hash rate.  NSA repeats the operation until Bitcoin is dead.

Or... the Bitcoin Foundation could be proactive and fix this before we have an attack in the first place.

This doesn't have to be the NSA either.  Any sufficiently advanced government could do this.  China would have a good motive.

[Ibian]

It's really not something that can just be ignored. The risk right now might be low, but there is nothing theoretically stopping a government or the world banks from setting up enough hardware to get, say, 99.9% or more of the total network power. It's in the billions for that much, and that's even assuming they do it by honest means. Given what's at stake, it's peanuts. If there is a solution available it should be implemented.

[Gingermod]

It's really not something that can just be ignored. The risk right now might be low, but there is nothing theoretically stopping a government or the world banks from setting up enough hardware to get, say, 99.9% or more of the total network power. It's in the billions for that much, and that's even assuming they do it by honest means. Given what's at stake, it's peanuts. If there is a solution available it should be implemented.

Well if that's what they wanted they could just out right ban Bitcoin, but that's not happening.

It would cost 139943424$ just to buy the hardware to control half the network.


So yes, it is something that can be ignored because it is not a problem or an impending issue.

If you wanna worry, worry about bans and regulation.

[TERA]

51% is that not that big of a threat because it is something that can be recovered from with a hard fork and in the future the vulnerability will be fixed alltogether with some patch.  The real threat is EC being broken.

[Ibian]

It's really not something that can just be ignored. The risk right now might be low, but there is nothing theoretically stopping a government or the world banks from setting up enough hardware to get, say, 99.9% or more of the total network power. It's in the billions for that much, and that's even assuming they do it by honest means. Given what's at stake, it's peanuts. If there is a solution available it should be implemented.

Well if that's what they wanted they could just out right ban Bitcoin, but that's not happening.

It would cost 139943424$ just to buy the hardware to control half the network.


So yes, it is something that can be ignored because it is not a problem or an impending issue.

If you wanna worry, worry about bans and regulation.

There is no time limit. And there is no way to know that someone is not gathering hardware right this moment. And again, peanuts.

Why wouldn't we fix this?

[HeliKopterBen]

I think the point you seem to be missing is: *he can't*

Looking beyond the irrational actor argument, for which you haven't provided a counter-argument, the NSA could decide that Bitcoin is a threat.  They could have a team of hackers break into a mining pool that controls >50% of the hash rate and perform the following operation:

1) Transfer all of the pool's coins out to an exchange, sell them in small chunks for USD, and wire to an undisclosed location.
2) Initiate a double-spend attack on the coins that were sold, thus stealing them from the wallets of the general public, and causing Bitcoin to fail in the eyes of the public.

The Bitcoin Foundation thus has 2 options on how to respond.  They can either:
1) Leave the new blockchain in place.  Have an angry population that was stolen from.  Bitcoin loses confidence and dies.
or
2) Revert the blockchain such that the double-spend never took place.  Consumers keep the Bitcoin.  The largest Bitcoin mining pool goes bankrupt.  Miners do not receive their rewards and become disillusioned with Bitcoin.  Hash rate suddenly drops substantially.  Bitcoin becomes open to further >50% attacks due to low hash rate.  NSA repeats the operation until Bitcoin is dead.

Or... the Bitcoin Foundation could be proactive and fix this before we have an attack in the first place.

This doesn't have to be the NSA either.  Any sufficiently advanced government could do this.  China would have a good motive.

I think you, like many, overestimate the ability of the NSA and underestimate the resiliency of the bitcoin network as far as a 51% attack goes.  Miners would leave compromised pools as soon as they detected a problem, probably before the 51% threshold had even been reached.  The attack you describe would be a long shot at best with minimal success, if any.

Like I said before, the NSA would have better luck and inflict much more pain if successful by trying to crack ECDSA, and they probably are trying to crack ECDSA.  The fact that they haven't cracked it yet speaks to its resiliency.

[Ibian]

We wouldn't know if they did. But it should be possible to switch to another protocol if that happened.

[Gingermod]

It's really not something that can just be ignored. The risk right now might be low, but there is nothing theoretically stopping a government or the world banks from setting up enough hardware to get, say, 99.9% or more of the total network power. It's in the billions for that much, and that's even assuming they do it by honest means. Given what's at stake, it's peanuts. If there is a solution available it should be implemented.

Well if that's what they wanted they could just out right ban Bitcoin, but that's not happening.

It would cost 139943424$ just to buy the hardware to control half the network.


So yes, it is something that can be ignored because it is not a problem or an impending issue.

If you wanna worry, worry about bans and regulation.

There is no time limit. And there is no way to know that someone is not gathering hardware right this moment. And again, peanuts.

Why wouldn't we fix this?

I can assure you, there are no rich entities looking to spend over 100 million dollars to destroy our monopoly money. The thought is asinine and I can unequivocally say that the biggest danger to Bitcoin will not arise from any one of these crazy theories. Fear regulation.

Also we can just hard fork.

[akujin]

Maybe they don't want to fix this YET.... because they're reserving this for the future price dip 
 

[bitcoinsrus]

In response to the people above. No it will not take 100 million to buy up the hashrate. It might not take 20 million to buy the majority of hardware to mine. This is because the people who make the asics chips (Taiwan etc) can either themselves or sell to others to hash. They can sell at a fraction of what knc or something sells to the public.