3 ms·
OK, so by 51% you really mean at least 50%. Do you happen to have a background in finance? It's quite unusual to say 51% in math/engineering.
by std_throwaway 8y ago
OK, so by 51% you really mean at least 50%. Do you happen to have a background in finance? It's quite unusual to say 51% in math/engineering.
- paulgb 8y ago"51% attack" is the name of the attack, but you don't actually need 51% of the hash-rate to do it, just 50% plus a small margin.
- direction534 8y agoYou dont need 50%. You can do it on 1% with luck.
- std_throwaway 8y agoIs there a known probability curve? With so many actors it could be very steep. Like 51% capacity has 99% chance of success and 49% has 1% of success and 40% has practically zero chance (these are made up numbers). It could also be quite shallow as in 1% capacity gives you 1% of success... that would actually be quite bad and invite malicious actors to test the system with regular attacks.
- im3w1l 8y agoIt's a race of who can get to N blocks first. The higher N the "steeper" it is. N is set by the merchant so as to balance security with quick transactions
- CryptoPunk 8y ago"51% attack" is a term of art in the blockchain field.
- std_throwaway 8y agoI see, the number in the name is not to be taken too literally.