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Has anyone analyzed the effect that the next Bitcoin halving will have on the cost of a 51% attack? It seems to me that on one hand, there will be less incenti
by paulgb 8y ago
Has anyone analyzed the effect that the next Bitcoin halving will have on the cost of a 51% attack?
It seems to me that on one hand, there will be less incentive to mine and so the global hash rate will drop. At the same time a bunch of miners would become unprofitable and therefore there would be an oversupply of mining capacity (assuming there is an efficient way to rent it.)
It seems like a perfect-storm event to me, but in my very casual interest I have not seen any attempts to analyze the effect of this on the 51% attack risk.
- chrisco255 8y agoUsually halvenings cause a subsequent boost to the price per Bitcoin.
- im3w1l 8y agoThat's historical accident and wont(can't) continue to hold.
- chrisco255 8y agoNo that's simply supply / demand economics. Miners dump their mined Bitcoin on the market immediately after mining. When a halvening occurs, that means less BTC are dumped on the market daily. Assuming demand remains the same, prices will increase.
- aeternus 8y agoTrue, however many people are likely expecting this to happen and there are now many more methods to perform arbitrage on Bitcoin That could soften this, it is more likely to be priced-in well before the actual event.