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Is nobody else here bothered by the following statement? It's on the first page, last sentence of the original paper on Bitcoins... "The system is secure as l

• nadaviv 14y ago
  No. If someone does manage to control 51% of the computing power of Bitcoin, he's much better off using that to mine bitcoins rather than "cheating". If he'll use it to cheat, he'll cause panic, make bitcoin drop their value and undermine the source of his own potential wealth. It'll be much better for him to play fair and just gain (a lot, with that much computing power) wealth by mining.
  • sashagim 14y ago
    That's true only if you assume the motivation is purely financial.
    • nadaviv 14y ago
      I guess that's right. Someone with enough computing power could harm bitcoin to the point it'll be unusable. But the people with those motives (government, banks) are much less likely to be part of something like that than people with financial motives.