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The 51% can ignore the 49%'s blocks, but there is no way the 51% can force the 49% to ignore THEIR blocks. The only way 51% of miners can fork the blockchain a
by tboyd47 4y ago
The 51% can ignore the 49%'s blocks, but there is no way the 51% can force the 49% to ignore THEIR blocks.
The only way 51% of miners can fork the blockchain and actually overtake the other 49% with more restrictive rules is if they have a hidden nuclear reactor dedicated to mining Bitcoin that produces hashpower equal or more than 49% of the network and they flip it on at the moment they fork.
Again, it doesn't matter how many people are convinced a 51% attack is possible on Bitcoin. It's never even been tried once. So the burden of proof is on you all. I'm just trying to help explain why this concept has never been proven.
- DSMan195276 4y ago> The 51% can ignore the 49%'s blocks, but there is no way the 51% can force the 49% to ignore THEIR blocks. If the 51% can ignore the blocks from the 49%, then why does it matter what the 49% is doing? Occasionally the 49% will be able to mine a block and temporarily create the longest chain, but the 51% can always just ignore that block and continue mining off of the one before it - eventually their chain will be the longest and the block(s) from the 49% will be lost. Really this isn't theoretical, it happens all the time by accident when two blocks get mined off of the same previous block. When that happens one of the two blocks gets lost, and the only difference with this scenario is that the 51% have enough hash power to ensure that their blocks are the ones that always (eventually) win and the 49% blocks are always lost.