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> There is no way to take off with something that is not yours. There is no reliable or efficient way to cheat. I'm a bit rusty on my crypto-currency knowledge
by disconnected 9y ago
> There is no way to take off with something that is not yours. There is no reliable or efficient way to cheat.
I'm a bit rusty on my crypto-currency knowledge, but I seem to remember that there is the possibility of a 51% attack, wherein if an evil actor managed to control 51% or more of the network, they could basically wreak all sorts of havoc on the network, from denial of service, to double-spending of coins to rewriting of (recent) transaction history.
As for feasibility, some mining groups have already briefly obtained 51% control of the network "by accident", but if you want to go the black hat route though, DDOS a large portion of the network, spin up a few dormant bots and presto, you have your 51%.
So it isn't impossible to cheat, and certainly not impractical.
This is a major problem. Has this problem been addressed at all?
- colatkinson 9y agoWhile not a failsafe method, lots of newer cryptocurrencies use proof-of-work that is "ASIC-proof." This means that CPU and GPU mining will remain profitable, theoretically preventing the degree of centralization seen in Bitcoin. While this doesn't remove all risks (e.g. an incredibly large mining pool), it is certainly harder to disable thousands of independent miners than it is to do so to a single centralized operation.