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[Devin Chow]

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[mcculum0010]

This threat seems very, very likely at some point. The cost of an attack wouldn't actually be that much to pull off. Even a short term (i.e. much cheaper) attack could completely destabilize the faith people have in Bitcoin.

Are we just waiting for an attack to occur before actually doing anything?

An attacker that isn't motivated by money will eventually attempt an attack. This isn't an "if", it's a "when".

Some billionaire, inherited wealth rich kid could completely devastate Bitcoin for under $50 Million.

Some people love to wreck shit. Rich guys that love to wreck shit? It could get ugly.

Somebody console me. I want to be wrong. What am I overlooking?

You can move to peercoin if you feel bitcoin is not safe enough, peercoin is more difficult to attack than bitcoin.

[Qsquegg]

This threat seems very, very likely at some point. The cost of an attack wouldn't actually be that much to pull off. Even a short term (i.e. much cheaper) attack could completely destabilize the faith people have in Bitcoin.

Are we just waiting for an attack to occur before actually doing anything?

An attacker that isn't motivated by money will eventually attempt an attack. This isn't an "if", it's a "when".

Some billionaire, inherited wealth rich kid could completely devastate Bitcoin for under $50 Million.

Some people love to wreck shit. Rich guys that love to wreck shit? It could get ugly.

Somebody console me. I want to be wrong. What am I overlooking?

Perhaps the reason this wouldn't happen is because there's nothing in wrecking bitcoin for the super rich? 50million to do it maybe, but in destroying bitcoin's credibility, there'll be no value resulting from any dastardly deeds I'm pretty sure.

[byt411]

This threat seems very, very likely at some point. The cost of an attack wouldn't actually be that much to pull off. Even a short term (i.e. much cheaper) attack could completely destabilize the faith people have in Bitcoin.

Are we just waiting for an attack to occur before actually doing anything?

An attacker that isn't motivated by money will eventually attempt an attack. This isn't an "if", it's a "when".

Some billionaire, inherited wealth rich kid could completely devastate Bitcoin for under $50 Million.

Some people love to wreck shit. Rich guys that love to wreck shit? It could get ugly.

Somebody console me. I want to be wrong. What am I overlooking?

Perhaps the reason this wouldn't happen is because there's nothing in wrecking bitcoin for the super rich? 50million to do it maybe, but in destroying bitcoin's credibility, there'll be no value resulting from any dastardly deeds I'm pretty sure.

Correct. The effects that it would have would be meaningless, and it can be blocked easily, but it's not a reason to ignore it.

[giveBTCpls]

What scares me is the fact someone with a lot of money and evil intentions could buy a shit tone of ASICS and try to push a 51%+ attack in coordination. If sometimes this happens by (allegedly) accident randomly, imagine if when the pool is close to 51%+, a lot of ASICS are turned on out of nowhere in that same pool pushing the % a lot higher.

[LiteCoinGuy]

because its complicated?

[BowieMan]

This threat seems very, very likely at some point. The cost of an attack wouldn't actually be that much to pull off. Even a short term (i.e. much cheaper) attack could completely destabilize the faith people have in Bitcoin.

Are we just waiting for an attack to occur before actually doing anything?

An attacker that isn't motivated by money will eventually attempt an attack. This isn't an "if", it's a "when".

Some billionaire, inherited wealth rich kid could completely devastate Bitcoin for under $50 Million.

Some people love to wreck shit. Rich guys that love to wreck shit? It could get ugly.

Somebody console me. I want to be wrong. What am I overlooking?

What can we do about it? That's the nature of Bitcoin, you can't do anything about it, unless the majority agrees on something. And how is the majority being determined? By hashing power, that's the limiting factor and the whole idea behind Bitcoin!

[ljudotina]

This threat seems very, very likely at some point. The cost of an attack wouldn't actually be that much to pull off. Even a short term (i.e. much cheaper) attack could completely destabilize the faith people have in Bitcoin.

Are we just waiting for an attack to occur before actually doing anything?

An attacker that isn't motivated by money will eventually attempt an attack. This isn't an "if", it's a "when".

Some billionaire, inherited wealth rich kid could completely devastate Bitcoin for under $50 Million.

Some people love to wreck shit. Rich guys that love to wreck shit? It could get ugly.

Somebody console me. I want to be wrong. What am I overlooking?

I had semi similar view about this topic as you untill i dug deep into BTC problematics. Thing is, it's not that noone is doing nothing, it's that noone can not do nothing. There are few ideas floating around that could not prevent but make it more costly to execute 51% attack, but they are very complicated and could have very negative impact on BTC. Dealing with 51% attack when PoW is in question is really really really hard. If it was any easyer, it would already be done.
If you really want to "console" yourself, i urge you to read some BTC documentation. It's not as easy to attack bitcoin eather....easy in like: oh look ill just spend this 50mil$ and BTC is gone. Nope...cant happen "just like that".

[ljudotina]

This threat seems very, very likely at some point. The cost of an attack wouldn't actually be that much to pull off. Even a short term (i.e. much cheaper) attack could completely destabilize the faith people have in Bitcoin.

Are we just waiting for an attack to occur before actually doing anything?

An attacker that isn't motivated by money will eventually attempt an attack. This isn't an "if", it's a "when".

Some billionaire, inherited wealth rich kid could completely devastate Bitcoin for under $50 Million.

Some people love to wreck shit. Rich guys that love to wreck shit? It could get ugly.

Somebody console me. I want to be wrong. What am I overlooking?

What can we do about it? That's the nature of Bitcoin, you can't do anything about it, unless the majority agrees on something. And how is the majority being determined? By hashing power, that's the limiting factor and the whole idea behind Bitcoin!

Majority is easy. When hard fork comes, ppl will use version 1 or version 2. Version that has more users wins. No problem about it.
Problem is what exactly CAN be done? When you start digging into the topic, you find out that ppl had ton of ideas, and that every single one of them fails even in theory. This topic is nothing that can be fixed by anything shorter than "revolutionary solution", and we can agree that that kind of solutions don't come from day to day.

[DannyHamilton]

Some billionaire, inherited wealth rich kid could completely devastate Bitcoin for under $50 Million.

Source?

How did you come up with that number?

Did you just pick $50 Million because it sounds like a big number that a "rich" person could accomplish and makes it sound scary?

[BowieMan]

This threat seems very, very likely at some point. The cost of an attack wouldn't actually be that much to pull off. Even a short term (i.e. much cheaper) attack could completely destabilize the faith people have in Bitcoin.

Are we just waiting for an attack to occur before actually doing anything?

An attacker that isn't motivated by money will eventually attempt an attack. This isn't an "if", it's a "when".

Some billionaire, inherited wealth rich kid could completely devastate Bitcoin for under $50 Million.

Some people love to wreck shit. Rich guys that love to wreck shit? It could get ugly.

Somebody console me. I want to be wrong. What am I overlooking?

What can we do about it? That's the nature of Bitcoin, you can't do anything about it, unless the majority agrees on something. And how is the majority being determined? By hashing power, that's the limiting factor and the whole idea behind Bitcoin!

Majority is easy. When hard fork comes, ppl will use version 1 or version 2. Version that has more users wins. No problem about it.
Problem is what exactly CAN be done? When you start digging into the topic, you find out that ppl had ton of ideas, and that every single one of them fails even in theory. This topic is nothing that can be fixed by anything shorter than "revolutionary solution", and we can agree that that kind of solutions don't come from day to day.

Yeah, a fork can be done at any time people can't agree on a specific way to adhere to bitcoin's rules. If for example tainted coins become a topic or some state forces the protocol to incorporate certain things, a hard fork may occur. People will then have to decide which chain to follow. Of course, bitcoins value will suffer greatly. But that's how it works - by definition!

[DannyHamilton]

a lot of ASICS are turned on out of nowhere in that same pool pushing the % a lot higher.

Unless the pool has evil intentions, why would this be a problem?

How long do you think the pool could remain above 51% before miners changed to other pools reducing the pool back below 51%.

What attacks could hte pool pull off that wouldn't result in the pool losing 51%?

[BowieMan]

a lot of ASICS are turned on out of nowhere in that same pool pushing the % a lot higher.

Unless the pool has evil intentions, why would this be a problem?

How long do you think the pool could remain above 51% before miners changed to other pools reducing the pool back below 51%.

What attacks could hte pool pull off that wouldn't result in the pool losing 51%?

Are you serious? If the incentives to remain in that pool are high enough, people will want to rather rely on other people to leave the pool? Why should they do that themselves? We've seen that with GHash.IO. It's been above 51% and people didn't do away.
Isn't this some fallacy, or even Crab Mentality? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crab_mentality

[sgk]

Perhaps the reason this wouldn't happen is because there's nothing in wrecking bitcoin for the super rich? 50million to do it maybe, but in destroying bitcoin's credibility, there'll be no value resulting from any dastardly deeds I'm pretty sure.

What if the obvious and financially strong enemies of Bitcoin (Banks, PayPal and likewise) do a 51% attack to save their own ass? They sure have got a hell to win if BTC loses credibility.

[Qsquegg]

Perhaps the reason this wouldn't happen is because there's nothing in wrecking bitcoin for the super rich? 50million to do it maybe, but in destroying bitcoin's credibility, there'll be no value resulting from any dastardly deeds I'm pretty sure.

What if the obvious and financially strong enemies of Bitcoin (Banks, PayPal and likewise) do a 51% attack to save their own ass? They sure have got a hell to win if BTC loses credibility.

Would this not require some serious infiltration on the part of those entities? I'm really not sure how it could ever be orchestrated, let alone with the sheer number of nodes necessary to overpower the network before the others realise what's going on. And even if it does happen, that's some serious money laundering and probably wouldn't go unnoticed in court!

[Lauda]

Why does everyone think that anyone could pull this off if they had the sufficient hashrate?
Do you think that there is a walk though that one can follow for pulling off an attack like this? 

[Qsquegg]

Why does everyone think that anyone could pull this off if they had the sufficient hashrate?
Do you think that there is a walk though that one can follow for pulling off an attack like this? 

Exactly!

[Baitty]

Ghash is the closest and they have said that they will be reducing the amount of miners if they get closer which they have been doing which I think is good as they own most of the hashing power right now but even if they didn't do that and had 51% it doesn't mean they could do the actual attack there is still some luck that they would need to perform the attack I honestly believe this attack has no threat to Bitcoin at the moment.

[ducatitalia]

Discussion has been going on for years...and will likely continue for years to come.  In the interim, this is one of the better recent topic threads I've read on the issue: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=655572.0

[InwardContour]

Ghash is the closest and they have said that they will be reducing the amount of miners if they get closer which they have been doing which I think is good as they own most of the hashing power right now but even if they didn't do that and had 51% it doesn't mean they could do the actual attack there is still some luck that they would need to perform the attack I honestly believe this attack has no threat to Bitcoin at the moment.

Ghash won't do a 51% attack even if they could just because they earn money through bitcoins.
By double spending they would decrease the trust people has in bitcoins and their business won't work anymore.