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I think you're misunderstanding the meaning behind a 51% attack? An honest network participant will accept the chain with the largest accumulated proof of work
by Rodyland 8y ago
I think you're misunderstanding the meaning behind a 51% attack?
An honest network participant will accept the chain with the largest accumulated proof of work. This is necessary to resolve forks of the chain, which are a natural occurrence.
A 51% attack means that the attacker can create a chain with more work than the rest of the network.
The idea that you can say "we require 60%" makes no sense by itself - you have to say what you actually mean in the context of a competitive and adversarial distributed proof of work blockchain network...
Maybe you have some ideas how to avoid history-rewriting attacks, in which case you should write a white-paper and launch your own sh1tcoin or ICO (only half joking).
- Jommi 8y agoYou're only describing how it works with Bitcoin and other coins that are forked (git-forked) from it. Some blockchains require a higher amount of consensus to fork (blockchain fork).
- XR0CSWV3h3kZWg 8y agoCould you point to a PoW based cryptocurrency that isn't vulnerable to a 51% attack?
- Jommi 8y agoyou're right, I was mixing up some concepts in my mind, sorry! For others who might be confused, here is a good resource: https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/26999/supermajority-to-prevent-51-attack https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/26999/supermajor...
- hinkley 8y agoThank you for helping me put into words what bothers me about crypto currency. We’ve deployed an AP algorithm for financial transactions. That’s not fixable.