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On the growing risk of the 51% attack against BCash

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Re: On the growing risk of the 51% attack against BCash

#31

Post by yourrng »

stale2002 wrote: post #12
mplewis wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone who's mining Bitcoin could switch to Bitcoin Cash and work to perform a 51% attack. > BCash shares hashing algorithm with Bitcoin. That means any hashing power on the Bitcoin network can work on BCash network. And there is typically 10 times more miners mining on BTC, than on BCH because of the difference in the price and minning fees.

And which miner SPECIFICALLY would do that? There are only like 7 major mining pools. Which of those 7 do you think would do an attack? The miners were the ones who helped create Bitcoin Cash. Why would they attack it? The miners are the largest supporters of big blocks, so it make no sense that they would attack the thing that they helped launch. Also, people don't seem to realize that it is already possible to do a…

Let me count some scenarios:

* a miner losing its share in the competitive game could make a one last money grab before its hardware is obsolete

* BCash backing miners losing confidence in success of BCH could just damage the whole space, for revenge or and profit

* complete outsider like an angry government could try to disrupt the space to ban all crypto or at least heavily regulate it / buy some time

Re: On the growing risk of the 51% attack against BCash

#32

Post by cperciva »

VMG wrote: post #30
chc wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe it means that the recipient of the double-spent transaction can sue you or send goons after you just like they would someone who defrauded them without using cryptocurrency.

How would you determine the culprit? You can't even prove that there was an intent to roll back a particular transaction.

No, but you can show that there was an intention to double-spend coins.

Re: On the growing risk of the 51% attack against BCash

#33

Post by MintPattern »

deftnerd wrote: post #26

I can't take any criticisms against Bitcoin Cash seriously when the authors knowingly refer to it as BCash. It's not just a shortening of the name, it's part of a concerted effort by detractors to distance the chain from the Bitcoin legacy. Any author that purposefully uses the term BCash is, on the face, incapable of being objective because they're advertising that they're detractors already. The Bitcoin Core (no on…

It’s called bcash in hopes that too many newbies won’t go deposit bitcoin into a “bitcoin cash” address and sadly lose it all.

Re: On the growing risk of the 51% attack against BCash

#34

Post by soared »

jVinc wrote: post #20

I like the math and theory on this. But really why would someone who's making millions on the status quo risk tanking the market for a one time gain? Seems unlikely.

Any organization/individual/government who has enough money that they aren't interested in cashing out and is also interested in medium/large scale economic disruption.

China, Russia, UAE, USA, sci-fi terrorists, evil villains, illuminati etc. (I'm only mostly joking)

Re: On the growing risk of the 51% attack against BCash

#35

Post by yourrng »

deftnerd wrote: post #26

I can't take any criticisms against Bitcoin Cash seriously when the authors knowingly refer to it as BCash. It's not just a shortening of the name, it's part of a concerted effort by detractors to distance the chain from the Bitcoin legacy. Any author that purposefully uses the term BCash is, on the face, incapable of being objective because they're advertising that they're detractors already. The Bitcoin Core (no on…

tl,dr: No arguments about the main point.

Re: On the growing risk of the 51% attack against BCash

#36

Post by em3rgent0rdr »

oh_sigh wrote: post #28
em3rgent0rdr wrote: post #2

tl;dr: younger coins have fewer miners, so they are more susceptible to 51% attack. In particular BCash has same hash function as BTC, so those BTC miners could easily switch into mining BCash, and so is even more at risk.

It would incur a huge opportunity cost for them to switch over, especially because they would tank bcash by doing it.

Yes it would. This article is surprisingly ignorant of past discussion of the %51 attack.

Re: On the growing risk of the 51% attack against BCash

#37

Post by VMG »

gizmo686 wrote: post #27
VMG wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The second one can be retaliated against off-chain. What do you mean?

If you do a double spend attack of any significance, the other party will notice. Unless you are doing something completely anonymous, the other party will also know who you are and be able to pursue other remedies (eg. sue you for fraud).

If double-spend detection rather than prevention was enough, you could build a much cheaper and more efficient payment system than Bitcoin.

What makes Bitcoin interesting is the fact that you don't have to resort to the legal system for final arbitration.

Re: On the growing risk of the 51% attack against BCash

#38

Post by tree_of_item »

gizmo686 wrote: post #27
VMG wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The second one can be retaliated against off-chain. What do you mean?

If you do a double spend attack of any significance, the other party will notice. Unless you are doing something completely anonymous, the other party will also know who you are and be able to pursue other remedies (eg. sue you for fraud).

How could you possibly sue someone for double spending on a blockchain? I don't get it, isn't the point of this blockchain stuff to be the wild west? What is the grounds for a lawsuit? Why would a 51% attack be illegal? "Code is law", right?

Re: On the growing risk of the 51% attack against BCash

#39

Post by ErikAugust »

deftnerd wrote: post #26

I can't take any criticisms against Bitcoin Cash seriously when the authors knowingly refer to it as BCash. It's not just a shortening of the name, it's part of a concerted effort by detractors to distance the chain from the Bitcoin legacy. Any author that purposefully uses the term BCash is, on the face, incapable of being objective because they're advertising that they're detractors already. The Bitcoin Core (no on…

I'm pretty sure Bitcoin Cash is about ASICBOOST miners retaining their advantage - and nothing else.

Re: On the growing risk of the 51% attack against BCash

#40

Post by zepolen »

MintPattern wrote: post #33
deftnerd wrote: post #26

I can't take any criticisms against Bitcoin Cash seriously when the authors knowingly refer to it as BCash. It's not just a shortening of the name, it's part of a concerted effort by detractors to distance the chain from the Bitcoin legacy. Any author that purposefully uses the term BCash is, on the face, incapable of being objective because they're advertising that they're detractors already. The Bitcoin Core (no on…

It’s called bcash in hopes that too many newbies won’t go deposit bitcoin into a “bitcoin cash” address and sadly lose it all.

Why would he lose it?
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