3 ms·
Confirmations are just a measure of computing power essentially. By saying a transaction needs 3 confirmations you are saying that you require 30 minutes of net
by nwh 13y ago
Confirmations are just a measure of computing power essentially. By saying a transaction needs 3 confirmations you are saying that you require 30 minutes of network hashing time before you call a transaction secure. For the same 30 minutes you'd need 12 Litecoin confirmations.
The chance of me solving 4 litecoim blocks is the same as me solving 1 bit coin block, assuming the same hash power and difficulty. In reality Litecoin is quite low in both, so is substantially easier to abuse in the real world.
- Dylan16807 13y agoThe chance of solving 4 litecoin blocks is the same as solving 1 bitcoin block, sure. But look at it this way. If bitcoin blocks were once a day, then if you had a few percent of the network power you would get 1 day = 1 confirmation ahead of your opponent all the time. But with bitcoin blocks every few minutes, you have an infinitessimal chance of getting 1 day = hundreds of confirmations ahead. The distribution of timings is much wilder when you're only taking a couple samples. The longest confirmations in the world won't make 2-confirmation transactions completely safe, but 20 confirmations is pretty secure with any length.
- makomk 13y agoNo, confirmations are not just a measure of computing power. The difficulty of carrying out attacks with a sub-50% proportion of the total hash power increases exponentially with the number of confirmations, whereas requiring more work per confirmation only gives a linear increase. Satoshi's original whitepaper explains this.