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What about the 51% attack problem? Why doesn’t this matter? Can someone explain how this currency is a good bet when there is this seemly huge gaping hole in

• hawk_ 6y ago
  that's right i wonder the same. a motivated state actor with access to hydroelectric dams, nuclear power and large datacentres can still easily take over the network.
  • caseysoftware 6y ago
    > can still easily take over the network How much compute power and electric would that take?
    • WealthVsSurvive 6y ago
      How many miners are in China?
• rawtxapp 6y ago
  It would be extremely costly and if you were to already invest all that money, your incentive is to make money from it, not cause a very short term disruption.
• amatic 6y ago
  If I understand correctly, at the moment if someone would want to do the 51% attack, they would need to spend energy for proof of work that would overpower the rest of btc the network, which is equal to expenditure of Argentina in kWh. A lot of people complain about this expenditure.
• coinward 6y ago
  If you have enough hash power to 51% attack Bitcoin at all, your potential for rewards by instead mining honestly are significantly higher, at least that's how the game theory generally plays out
  • askvictor 6y ago
    The other aspect is that, as someone approaches 51%, there is increased incentive for everyone else to prevent that from happening.
    • naebother 6y ago
      Bitcoins of mass destruction. Going to war over BTC control sounds absurd. But so does $50k a pop. So who knows.
• Zamicol 6y ago
  It's a huge problem. Worse, bitcoin's massive electricity usage results in data center consolidation. If a nation state just simply wanted to impair bitcoin, they could chop off electricity to a few warehouses. If they cut off 25% of miners, blocks would take 25% longer, and difficulty retargeting would take about three weeks. At 50%, blocks take twice as long and retargeting would take a month. Worse, there's the "time travel attack". Say a nation state quietly amassed 51% of mining power. They could quietly mine blocks and release them all at once, reversing transactions for however long they were mining. This is not a double spend mind you, just simply release empty blocks. Mined for 2 weeks? Reverse 2 weeks of transactions. Then rinse and repeat.
• jarenmf 6y ago
  At current energy prices, assuming you need half of the energy needed to do mining to perform a 51% attack and you have access to the needed hardware. You need to burn ~12 million usd daily to take over the network