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> or else risk that somebody else can execute a 51% attack No, they aren't motivated by that. They are motivated purely by profit. If more miners start mining
by bouncycastle 6y ago
> or else risk that somebody else can execute a 51% attack
No, they aren't motivated by that. They are motivated purely by profit. If more miners start mining, the difficulty goes up, and therefore profit goes down. So they need to keep adding more machines. The price is driving this cycle too. The current hashrate & difficulty are at their ATH levels.
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- ForHackernews 6y agoPotato/potato The bitcoin advocates like to pretend this is somehow about "securing the network" instead of pure greed, but it doesn't matter either way. Even if we take them at their word, the miners have to keep pouring in more and more energy or risk a 51% attack.
- bouncycastle 6y agoNo, that's incorrect. More energy does not mean more secure, and it's a common fallacy in bitcoin. If you read bitcoin.pdf, the security depends on the % of miners that are honest. In a nutshell, more energy just means that the "difficulty" goes up, i.e more hashes are required, but that's nothing to do with security.