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This DC cost $100 million. Not exactly pocket change. http://www.coindesk.com/bitfury-details-100-million-georgia-data-center/ http://www.coindesk.com/bitfury-d

by cgjaro 11y ago

This 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 ago
Or you could just buy bit fury
- maaku 11y ago
  Or be the sovereign state whose jurisdiction that data center is in.
- cgjaro 11y ago
  You couldn't buy BitFury for less than 200 or 300 million dollar. After all they expect this $100 million data center to be profitable so I am sure they value their company at least 2x or 3x this.
gcr 11y ago
Yeah, but how many bitcoins is USD$ 100 million worth?
- ragnar123 11y ago
  229922 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 ago
People 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.
- Retric 11y ago
  As the mining rewards keep lowering it's getting to the point here someone is going to do this for the lulz. As to cost you can sell all your coins before doing a 51% attack. Short the market and at some point it might even be proffitable to do so.
- mootothemax 11y ago
  >People 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. If BitFury can turn $200 million into $400 million now rather than over a couple of years, why on earth would they care about the side-effect of killing off bitcoin? For the avoidance of doubt, I think that BitFury's best interest is BitFury; as long as they make a decent chunk of money, the end result for bitcoin is - and should be - immaterial to them.
  - cma 11y ago
    But if that was a predictable consequence, they can't turn $200million into $400million now, because other would anticipate the future state of things and the price would plummet before a couple years. Not that I think that is at all what is going to happen.
    - mootothemax 11y ago
      >because other would anticipate the future state of things and the price would plummet before a couple years. Why would the price plummeting matter to them if they've already made their money?
      - x3c 11y ago
        The only way they make money (cash out) is if trust remains in the bitcoin platform. By doing 51%, they tank the platform itself. No liquidity. Provable and transparent majority attack is MAD in the strictest sense.
creshal 11y ago
It's not pocket change… except for government organizations.
- davidgerard 11y ago
  It is profoundly unlikely a state-level actor would bother. You can cripple Bitcoin transaction clearing with a thousand dollars to DDOS the network with spam. If only state-level actors had a thousand bucks lying around ...

by cgjaro 11y ago

sanswork 11y ago

Or you could just buy bit fury

maaku 11y ago
Or be the sovereign state whose jurisdiction that data center is in.
cgjaro 11y ago
You couldn't buy BitFury for less than 200 or 300 million dollar. After all they expect this $100 million data center to be profitable so I am sure they value their company at least 2x or 3x this.

gcr 11y ago

Yeah, but how many bitcoins is USD$ 100 million worth?

ragnar123 11y ago
229922 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 ago

People 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.

Retric 11y ago
As the mining rewards keep lowering it's getting to the point here someone is going to do this for the lulz. As to cost you can sell all your coins before doing a 51% attack. Short the market and at some point it might even be proffitable to do so.
mootothemax 11y ago
>People 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. If BitFury can turn $200 million into $400 million now rather than over a couple of years, why on earth would they care about the side-effect of killing off bitcoin? For the avoidance of doubt, I think that BitFury's best interest is BitFury; as long as they make a decent chunk of money, the end result for bitcoin is - and should be - immaterial to them.
- cma 11y ago
  But if that was a predictable consequence, they can't turn $200million into $400million now, because other would anticipate the future state of things and the price would plummet before a couple years. Not that I think that is at all what is going to happen.
  - mootothemax 11y ago
    >because other would anticipate the future state of things and the price would plummet before a couple years. Why would the price plummeting matter to them if they've already made their money?
    - x3c 11y ago
      The only way they make money (cash out) is if trust remains in the bitcoin platform. By doing 51%, they tank the platform itself. No liquidity. Provable and transparent majority attack is MAD in the strictest sense.

creshal 11y ago

It's not pocket change… except for government organizations.

davidgerard 11y ago
It is profoundly unlikely a state-level actor would bother. You can cripple Bitcoin transaction clearing with a thousand dollars to DDOS the network with spam. If only state-level actors had a thousand bucks lying around ...