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A 51% doesn't get you coins, it lets you spend coins twice. Imagine: 1) borrow a bunch of BTC, 2) use it to buy stuff you want, 3) 51% attack to fork the chai
by dllthomas 4y ago
A 51% doesn't get you coins, it lets you spend coins twice. Imagine:
1) borrow a bunch of BTC, 2) use it to buy stuff you want, 3) 51% attack to fork the chain and reverse your spend, 4) pay back the borrowed BTC
What does it matter if the price of BTC falls through the floor afterward?
Of course depending on what you buy, what your lender knows and cares about, and more, you might still face repercussions that make it unreasonable to expect to benefit, but that's enforced outside of BTC rather than by BTC, relying on the systems BTC proponents often explicitly distrust.
- ghiculescu 4y agoOkay sure. At best you can do that once, ever. So you’d better buy something worthwhile.
- checkdrain 4y ago[dead]
- dllthomas 4y agoYeah, "ideally" the cost of the attack can be paid with borrowed BTC; otherwise, it would certainly have to be a very large haul to be worthwhile.
- anonymouskimmer 4y agoYou can already spend coins twice, it's just that one of the addresses you send the coins to ultimately won't get them. So people have to wait some time to ensure the transaction fully processes before they can give you the goods in full confidence that they have received payment. At some point, if cryptocurrencies become more established, it might be financially beneficial for one blockchain if another blockchain becomes non-viable.
- dllthomas 4y agoThe point of a 51% attack is to destroy any such thing as "fully processes".