4 ms·
Well, 50% is an arbitrary barrier, but the possibility of a double spend is already there at 48%. Correct me if I'm wrong, but if p is the percentage of hashin
by infruset 12y ago
Well, 50% is an arbitrary barrier, but the possibility of a double spend is already there at 48%.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but if p is the percentage of hashing power you have, then mining amounts to throwing a biased coin with probability p of showing heads, and to double spend with 6 confirmations amounts to getting 6 heads in a row. p=48 or p=50 is a small difference in that respect.
- Igglyboo 12y ago50% is not arbitrary. If they have more than 50% they can pull off double spends at their discretion, if they have less than 50% there is some element of chance.
- hartator 12y agoWhat infrusnet is saying, is you already have odds to double spending even with < 50%. You just have to try hard enough, by try hard enough, is doing a lot of transactions. Moreover, it's possible that one of the other 52% colludes with GHash.IO and they have more than 50%.
- infruset 12y agoOk, you mean because they can actually afford to ignore any other blockchain and just build on their own? Point taken. So 51% would be terrible, but 48% is 1) dangerously close to it 2) bad in itself because it allows for double spending eventually with reasonable probability.