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This quantifies the least likely attack. Really the things crypto people need to fear is a bug like the one that let someone make an extra billion bitcoin happe

This quantifies the least likely attack. Really the things crypto people need to fear is a bug like the one that let someone make an extra billion bitcoin happening again. No one writes perfect software, it's just a matter of time and then all trust will be broken.

nwiswell 3y ago
I'd guess that the odds of bug discovery is roughly proportional to the number of people looking at the source code times the economic incentive to find a bug. Both of these are astronomically high in the case of Bitcoin and Ethereum, and it's been some time since any breaking bugs have been found, so the odds of any remaining exploitable bugs must be pretty low. A new bug could be introduced, obviously, but I think the review period for new changes reduces the odds of that too.
- orionsbelt 3y ago
  It already happened once: https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2018/09/21/the-latest-bitcoin-bug-was-so-bad-developers-kept-its-full-details-a-secret/ https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2018/09/21/the-latest-bitco...
- yao420 3y ago
  I actually think people haven’t found anything because few skilled hackers have dedicated time to it. If the project zero team or Tavis by himself dedicated time to reviewing bitcoin it would fall apart like any other software.
  - tnel77 3y ago
    Then why not do it?
    - zelda420 3y ago
      Probably not in scope for Project Zero? Or they find other stuff more interesting. Security researchers don't work for free. I did some light searching and I couldn't find any sanctioned audits against Bitcoin core. The Bitcoin team should hire someone like trail of bits to do a multiple month audit.
      - npoc 3y ago
        But the "security researchers" wouldn't be working for free. Bitcoin has had an enormous bounty on its head for at least 10 years: "hack me and get paid millions/billions". It would be naïve to think there aren't highly skilled people continuously trying to do that.
  - idiotsecant 3y ago
    Very unlikely. There is a massive payday for the first person to find a major bug. Even if that bug does not result in extra crypto in your pocket, doesn't matter. Its trivial to make money on downward crypto price swings as well. Find bug, take short position, release bug, collect payday.
- latchkey 3y ago
  Ethereum switched from PoW to PoS. While it has been very stable, it has a much much higher chance of having a catastrophic bug than Bitcoin, which has remained relatively stable for years now.
- bawolff 3y ago
  That assumes you actually get to keep the bitcoin (no hard fork to reverse, no value collapse due to sudden lack of trust, no gov throwing you in jail for stealing, no angry mobsters putting a hit out on you). The ideal ecconomic outcome would be something small enough you don't get noticed. Whose to say that isn't already happening? By definition you wouldn't be able to tell.
  - npoc 3y ago
    Even if that where the case - extremely unlikely given that every fragment of bitcoin can be openly traced to it's origin, and double-spending detection is built deeply into the fundamentals of the system - it wouldn't really be any different to how the current fiat money system works.
- voldacar 3y ago
  It's probably proportional to log(number of people looking at the source code) since the parts of the source code that people tend to look at are not uniformly distributed.
saghm 3y ago
> Really the things crypto people need to fear is a bug like the one that let someone make an extra billion bitcoin happening again. No one writes perfect software, it's just a matter of time and then all trust will be broken. This is why the idea of "smart contracts" seems so crazy to me. As many flaws as there are in human-based contract systems, the fact that contracts aren't an incontrovertible source of truth isn't one of them. This isn't even the classic mistake of trying to solve a social problem with a technical solution; this is creating an entirely _new_ social problem that doesn't exist with a technical "solution" to one that doesn't fix any issues that do already exist.
- npoc 3y ago
  There's different levels of "smart". Every bitcoin transaction is a smart contract: "I unequivocally agree to give you this much of my bitcoin" A slightly smarter one would be "I unequivocally agree to give you this much of my bitcoin on 1/1/2030"
  - saghm 3y ago
    My point is that human-based contract systems don't suffer from needing to think of every possible edge case up front in order to be legally enforceable; courts make rulings based on stuff like "what would a reasonable person would infer in this case?" all the time, and in some cases, unreasonable contracts aren't even enforceable at all even if they technically are logically sound.
    - npoc 3y ago
      Yes, I understand, but legally enforced contracts can be both a blessing and a curse. Contracts where no nanny state/tyrannical state can intervene on a mutual agreement between two people have their own value. > human-based contract systems don't suffer from needing to think of every possible edge case up front This isn't always a good thing. As smart contracts are in a form enforceable by computation, they could be put through a series of automated checks to help ensure all edge cases have been considered.
- 3y ago

nwiswell 3y ago

I'd guess that the odds of bug discovery is roughly proportional to the number of people looking at the source code times the economic incentive to find a bug. Both of these are astronomically high in the case of Bitcoin and Ethereum, and it's been some time since any breaking bugs have been found, so the odds of any remaining exploitable bugs must be pretty low. A new bug could be introduced, obviously, but I think the review period for new changes reduces the odds of that too.

orionsbelt 3y ago
It already happened once: https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2018/09/21/the-latest-bitcoin-bug-was-so-bad-developers-kept-its-full-details-a-secret/ https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2018/09/21/the-latest-bitco...
yao420 3y ago
I actually think people haven’t found anything because few skilled hackers have dedicated time to it. If the project zero team or Tavis by himself dedicated time to reviewing bitcoin it would fall apart like any other software.
- tnel77 3y ago
  Then why not do it?
  - zelda420 3y ago
    Probably not in scope for Project Zero? Or they find other stuff more interesting. Security researchers don't work for free. I did some light searching and I couldn't find any sanctioned audits against Bitcoin core. The Bitcoin team should hire someone like trail of bits to do a multiple month audit.
    - npoc 3y ago
      But the "security researchers" wouldn't be working for free. Bitcoin has had an enormous bounty on its head for at least 10 years: "hack me and get paid millions/billions". It would be naïve to think there aren't highly skilled people continuously trying to do that.
- idiotsecant 3y ago
  Very unlikely. There is a massive payday for the first person to find a major bug. Even if that bug does not result in extra crypto in your pocket, doesn't matter. Its trivial to make money on downward crypto price swings as well. Find bug, take short position, release bug, collect payday.
latchkey 3y ago
Ethereum switched from PoW to PoS. While it has been very stable, it has a much much higher chance of having a catastrophic bug than Bitcoin, which has remained relatively stable for years now.
bawolff 3y ago
That assumes you actually get to keep the bitcoin (no hard fork to reverse, no value collapse due to sudden lack of trust, no gov throwing you in jail for stealing, no angry mobsters putting a hit out on you). The ideal ecconomic outcome would be something small enough you don't get noticed. Whose to say that isn't already happening? By definition you wouldn't be able to tell.
- npoc 3y ago
  Even if that where the case - extremely unlikely given that every fragment of bitcoin can be openly traced to it's origin, and double-spending detection is built deeply into the fundamentals of the system - it wouldn't really be any different to how the current fiat money system works.
voldacar 3y ago
It's probably proportional to log(number of people looking at the source code) since the parts of the source code that people tend to look at are not uniformly distributed.

saghm 3y ago

> Really the things crypto people need to fear is a bug like the one that let someone make an extra billion bitcoin happening again. No one writes perfect software, it's just a matter of time and then all trust will be broken. This is why the idea of "smart contracts" seems so crazy to me. As many flaws as there are in human-based contract systems, the fact that contracts aren't an incontrovertible source of truth isn't one of them. This isn't even the classic mistake of trying to solve a social problem with a technical solution; this is creating an entirely _new_ social problem that doesn't exist with a technical "solution" to one that doesn't fix any issues that do already exist.

npoc 3y ago
There's different levels of "smart". Every bitcoin transaction is a smart contract: "I unequivocally agree to give you this much of my bitcoin" A slightly smarter one would be "I unequivocally agree to give you this much of my bitcoin on 1/1/2030"
- saghm 3y ago
  My point is that human-based contract systems don't suffer from needing to think of every possible edge case up front in order to be legally enforceable; courts make rulings based on stuff like "what would a reasonable person would infer in this case?" all the time, and in some cases, unreasonable contracts aren't even enforceable at all even if they technically are logically sound.
  - npoc 3y ago
    Yes, I understand, but legally enforced contracts can be both a blessing and a curse. Contracts where no nanny state/tyrannical state can intervene on a mutual agreement between two people have their own value. > human-based contract systems don't suffer from needing to think of every possible edge case up front This isn't always a good thing. As smart contracts are in a form enforceable by computation, they could be put through a series of automated checks to help ensure all edge cases have been considered.
3y ago