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A massive bitcoin mining virus wouldn't help. Let's say there are 2 billion PCs in the world, as this random site estimates[1]. Let's say each of them has a hig
by Meekro 8y ago
A massive bitcoin mining virus wouldn't help. Let's say there are 2 billion PCs in the world, as this random site estimates[1]. Let's say each of them has a high-end graphics card.. say, a GTX 1060 that can do 20 MH/s. Let's say your virus can break into every single computer in the world, and run all those graphics cards at 100% without being noticed.
Now your mining power is: 20 MH/s * 2 billion = 40000 TH/s, or 0.1% of Bitcoin's hash power.
[1] https://www.quora.com/How-many-PC-exist-in-the-world https://www.quora.com/How-many-PC-exist-in-the-world
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago> 2 billion PCs Hence my specification for industrial scale. More likely: a corrupt data centre system admin or government official. In any case, if you’re taking on the Bitcoin network, doing it with fairly-obtained resources would be silly.
- arisAlexis 8y agodata center can't compete with asic mining farms
- stale2002 8y agoI think the implication would be that you steal the asic mining farms. IE, you somehow compromise 51% of the EXISTING hashpower, do your attack. It doesn't matter to YOU that their mining hardware will become worthless.
- wafflebear 8y agoIt seems very implausible. Anyone with that level of sophistication may as well look for exploits in bitcoin exchanges and steal the bitcoins directly.
- chatmasta 8y agoA corrupt data center official has much easier options to attack bitcoin at the network level. For example, a rogue sysadmin at a major Tier 1 ISP could use BGP hijacking to mount a partitioning attack against the network. See the paper “Hijacking Bitcoin: Routing Attacks on Cryptocurrencies” [0] for more details on this. [0] https://btc-hijack.ethz.ch/files/btc_hijack.pdf https://btc-hijack.ethz.ch/files/btc_hijack.pdf