5 ms·

At 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 ago
  And now a single company can. Progress!
  • cgjaro 11y ago
    It 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 ago
  A 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.
  • lukifer 11y ago
    Counterpoint: physical security largely works this way too.
    • gritzko 11y ago
      Well, things work much better in crypto (not proof-of-work, but the "real" one).