5 ms·
I'm no expert so bear with me. My understanding is that the danger of miner control is not "double-spending" but making multiple spends and being able to pick
by alexbeloi 9y ago
I'm no expert so bear with me.
My understanding is that the danger of miner control is not "double-spending" but making multiple spends and being able to pick the most favorable one after the fact.
As a non-controller if you try to double-spend, you can't know which one of your attempted transactions will be recorded in the ledger and which will be rejected. As a 51% controlling miner, you can choose the 'correct' transaction.
This allows the 51% controlling miner to engage in futures arbitrage.
- throwawaylolx 9y agoDouble-spending just means spending the same output in multiple transactions--there are many ways to perform a double-spend attack. Your interpretation of a 51% attack is correct. If it wasn't clear, my comment was referring to a double-spend that would result in an invalid block i.e. both transactions are on the same chain. I simply used an example to argue that it's always been the case that invalid chains are rejected by honest nodes.