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Except, it's actually a lot easier than stopping global piracy. All you have to do is invest enough money into mining equipment to overpower 50% of the network

Except, it's actually a lot easier than stopping global piracy. All you have to do is invest enough money into mining equipment to overpower 50% of the network and then you have the ability to stop all transactions. The cost of this is well within the ability of probably any government and will be for some time to come.

Karunamon 14y ago
At which point other technological measures will be taken, whether that be improved client software or what have you. You can't fundamentally stop people from exchanging hashes, which is what bitcoin is.
- hnolable 14y ago
  What you meant to say was you can't stop people from broadcasting transactions. Which is true. But you can stop transactions from getting into the blockchain which is "what bitcoin is". A technologically savy attacker could forsee any counter measures and account for them in their initial attack. I haven't seen any counter measures proposed which would be a foolproof way to subvert a well planned 51% attack to stop legitimate transaction processing.
  - w0utert 14y ago
    This is all besides the point I was trying to make. It doesn't matter if and how government can stop Bitcoin trades or whatever. It's about what happens when governments simply deem Bitcoins illegal, preventing legitimate use. It will undermine trust, and people will start converting their wealth into something else. In terms of wealth preservation, Bitcoins are just like any other forms of currency, except that there really isn't anything protecting it from becoming worthless. I don't think there is any kind of currency that survived for more than a few hundred years, there have probably been hundreds if not thousands. Stamps, sticks with carvings on them, silver coins when fiat coins where still actually made of gold (can you believe it?), seashhells, etc. The ones that survived the longest have been government-controlled fiat currencies. Once again, just to make myself clear, I'm not saying this is a good thing, just making the observation.
    - hnolable 14y ago
      You're still thinking very US-centric. So what if US makes it illegal, maybe that kills the US market for it, but there is still the rest of the world. And maybe the rest of the world using it while the US cannot even provides them some advantage over the US (of course this isn't necessary). On the other hand a 51% attack on the blockchain by _anyone_ would have a near 100% chance of destroying Bitcoin.
      - LyndsySimon 14y ago
        Not true, necessarily. There have been proposals to form a "web of trust" for miners, which would prevent this sort of thing from happening. Miners who have been on the network for longer would have greater authority than new miners, regardless of computational ability. If a 51% attack occurs, it would in effect fork the blockchain, because the WoT-enabled miners would not accept their signed blocks. You can fork the blockchain now if you want - it's just a matter of getting enough people to agree with you for those coins to have value. I'm not saying it would be _good_ for Bitcoin - but this is not an insurmountable problem from a tech standpoint.
oleganza 14y ago
I wonder how government is going to pay for all that equipment if at that point Bitcoin will start proving more and more useful than government-issued paper.
- hnolable 14y ago
  Obviously at some point it would be cost prohibitive for any one government. But we are far far from that point. The price would probably have to go up by many orders of magnitude.
  - Karunamon 14y ago
    Doesn't the bitcoin network self-regulate to increase the difficulty of mining coins as the speed of coin generation increases?
adrianwaj 14y ago
with that equipment, wouldn't it just be more lucrative to mine? or in that case is the mere acceptance of bitcoin a cost that is too high to bear?
- hnolable 14y ago
  I'm talking about a scenario when a government(s) see Bitcoin as a national security threat. So yes, shutting it down would be more lucrative for them in the long run than mining it.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]

Karunamon 14y ago

At which point other technological measures will be taken, whether that be improved client software or what have you. You can't fundamentally stop people from exchanging hashes, which is what bitcoin is.

hnolable 14y ago
What you meant to say was you can't stop people from broadcasting transactions. Which is true. But you can stop transactions from getting into the blockchain which is "what bitcoin is". A technologically savy attacker could forsee any counter measures and account for them in their initial attack. I haven't seen any counter measures proposed which would be a foolproof way to subvert a well planned 51% attack to stop legitimate transaction processing.
- w0utert 14y ago
  This is all besides the point I was trying to make. It doesn't matter if and how government can stop Bitcoin trades or whatever. It's about what happens when governments simply deem Bitcoins illegal, preventing legitimate use. It will undermine trust, and people will start converting their wealth into something else. In terms of wealth preservation, Bitcoins are just like any other forms of currency, except that there really isn't anything protecting it from becoming worthless. I don't think there is any kind of currency that survived for more than a few hundred years, there have probably been hundreds if not thousands. Stamps, sticks with carvings on them, silver coins when fiat coins where still actually made of gold (can you believe it?), seashhells, etc. The ones that survived the longest have been government-controlled fiat currencies. Once again, just to make myself clear, I'm not saying this is a good thing, just making the observation.
  - hnolable 14y ago
    You're still thinking very US-centric. So what if US makes it illegal, maybe that kills the US market for it, but there is still the rest of the world. And maybe the rest of the world using it while the US cannot even provides them some advantage over the US (of course this isn't necessary). On the other hand a 51% attack on the blockchain by _anyone_ would have a near 100% chance of destroying Bitcoin.
    - LyndsySimon 14y ago
      Not true, necessarily. There have been proposals to form a "web of trust" for miners, which would prevent this sort of thing from happening. Miners who have been on the network for longer would have greater authority than new miners, regardless of computational ability. If a 51% attack occurs, it would in effect fork the blockchain, because the WoT-enabled miners would not accept their signed blocks. You can fork the blockchain now if you want - it's just a matter of getting enough people to agree with you for those coins to have value. I'm not saying it would be _good_ for Bitcoin - but this is not an insurmountable problem from a tech standpoint.

oleganza 14y ago

I wonder how government is going to pay for all that equipment if at that point Bitcoin will start proving more and more useful than government-issued paper.

hnolable 14y ago
Obviously at some point it would be cost prohibitive for any one government. But we are far far from that point. The price would probably have to go up by many orders of magnitude.
- Karunamon 14y ago
  Doesn't the bitcoin network self-regulate to increase the difficulty of mining coins as the speed of coin generation increases?

adrianwaj 14y ago

with that equipment, wouldn't it just be more lucrative to mine? or in that case is the mere acceptance of bitcoin a cost that is too high to bear?

hnolable 14y ago
I'm talking about a scenario when a government(s) see Bitcoin as a national security threat. So yes, shutting it down would be more lucrative for them in the long run than mining it.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]