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So less than half of one datacentre entirely owned by one company is enough to commit a 51% attack. I get that they say they are going to work on distribution
by sanswork 11y ago
So less than half of one datacentre entirely owned by one company is enough to commit a 51% attack. I get that they say they are going to work on distribution these chips to ensure they don't end up in that position but let's be honest they just destroyed any claim that the network is powerful enough to avoid malicious control by one miner now. They've not even raised that much money.
- brianpgordon 11y agoNot less than half of their datacenter, but less than all of their datacenter. See the current hash rate here: https://blockchain.info/charts/hash-rate?timespan=30days&showDataPoints=false&daysAverageString=1&show_header=true&scale=0&address= https://blockchain.info/charts/hash-rate?timespan=30days&sho...
- craigyk 11y agoAt any point since bitcoin's inception there have been plenty of major govts that could have easily afforded the resources to pull off a 51% attack.
- sanswork 11y agoAnd now a single company can. Progress!
- cgjaro 11y agoIt has always been the case that a single company could 51%-attack the network. No regression here. In fact the cost has continually increased over time. So, yes, progress.
- gritzko 11y agoA real bad thing here is the asymmetry. To prevent 51%, the network has to burn enormous amounts of energy 24x7 forever while the attacker only needs his energy for the duration of the attack.
- sowbug 11y agoMalice isn't enough. The only special power of a 50% miner is to consistently resolve double-spend attempts in its favor. If this happened, it would surely lower the value of Bitcoin. This, an attacker must be not just malicious but also irrational enough to forfeit the $800,000 in Bitcoin that it creates daily by virtue of its 50% control of the network. (6 blocks/hour x 24 hours/day x 25 bitcoin/block x $450/bitcoin x 50%)
- sanswork 11y agoShort first hope the exchanges don't fold and run it into the ground with double spends. Alternatively just attack it because you feel scared about it but I do t believe anyone in power is since it is not going anywhere
- crm416 11y agoIt's not necessarily 'irrational'. A 51% miner could profit from Bitcoin's downfall, or by threatening others, or even by bluffing an attack. See, e.g., the Goldfinger Attack in https://www.cs.princeton.edu/~kroll/papers/weis13_bitcoin.pdf https://www.cs.princeton.edu/~kroll/papers/weis13_bitcoin.pd....
- geofft 11y agoStupid question: if control of 50% of the hash power is so unimportant, why does Bitcoin rely on hash power anyway? Why not simply have a consensus system without proof-of-anything?
- circlecrimson 11y agoI think the reason is because then there would be no way for new coins to be mined and given to those who are rewarded for ensuring the security of the network.
- wizeman 11y agoWell, consensus between whom? How would you do distributed, anyone can participate at any time, byzantine consensus but still prevent Sybil attacks?
- cgjaro 11y agoThis DC cost $100 million. Not exactly pocket change. http://www.coindesk.com/bitfury-details-100-million-georgia-data-center/ http://www.coindesk.com/bitfury-details-100-million-georgia-... Plus, with BitFury online, the cost of a 51% attack just raised to $200 million. The only reason it is (currently, for a short time) hypothetically possible to 51%-attack the network with a budget in the low hundreds of million of dollars is because most of the miners are not using such efficient 16 nm chips. As the market migrate to these last generation chips, expect the cost to increase to $1+ billion in the next year.
- sanswork 11y agoOr you could just buy bit fury
- gcr 11y agoYeah, but how many bitcoins is USD$ 100 million worth?
- ragnar123 11y ago229922 BTC according to Google's exchange rates. See: https://www.google.com/search?q=100M+usd+in+bitcoin https://www.google.com/search?q=100M+usd+in+bitcoin
- Sealy 11y agoPeople seem to forget that it is NOT in BitFury's best interest to perform a 51% attack because, bitcoin's value will plummet if they do that.