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One of the neat things about mining is if you have enough hashing power to execute a 51% attack, you also have enough hashing power to mine a shitton of Bitcoin
by tlrobinson 14y ago
One of the neat things about mining is if you have enough hashing power to execute a 51% attack, you also have enough hashing power to mine a shitton of Bitcoin (50% * 6 blocks/hour * 24 hours * 25 BTC/block * 57 $/BTC = $100,000 per day), which might be more profitable (51% attacks only allow you to double spend what you have, not steal arbitrary Bitcoin), and is certainly far easier and less risky.
I'd be more concerned about governments or corporations who want to sabotage Bitcoin, or bugs in the software like we saw last week with the blockchain fork.
Right now it would only take a couple million dollars worth of ASICs to overwhelm the current hash rate. That should change as more ASIC manufacturers start shipping.