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94k Bitcoin (1B USD) transferred from unknown wallet to unknown wallet

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Re: 94k Bitcoin (1B USD) transferred from unknown wallet to unknown wallet

#581
post #574

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It effectively establishes a billion dollar bounty for any party who can rewrite enough blocks to erase it. I don't really agree with that statement. Yes, someone could mount a 51% attack to rewrite that block. However, it would be pretty straightforward to see what was happening (and which nodes were the malicious actors). If that did happen, the possible outcomes would be: 1. The value of bitcoin would fall to ba…

Does the time it would take to spin up enough compute to carry out a 51% attack decrease its likelihood? I.e more blocks are being written every day, so you need to do additional work to create the alternate chain?

Yep, but the timer potentially resets every time this money is moved.

Re: 94k Bitcoin (1B USD) transferred from unknown wallet to unknown wallet

#582

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if the attack is from the outside, which is not a requirement. It's not mutually exclusive. The miners who control the bitcoin network are already centralized on a handful of organizations in China. If they colluded on this attack they would take over >51% of the network because, hey, they already own and operate most of that computing power you're eluding to. Edit: There is also no evidence that the price would…

Wouldn't Bitcoin lose a lot of value if such an attack happened?

No, because future attacks wouldn't get any easier. One successful attack is just one successful attack. If your transaction is not worth a billion dollars, you're safe.

Re: 94k Bitcoin (1B USD) transferred from unknown wallet to unknown wallet

#583

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A couple million dollars is more than a nest egg. You can retire immediately and provide for your family and yourself your whole life with that kind of money.

$2m invested with 2% real returns is $40,000/y. So you could provide for your family but I think it would need to be pretty frugal and move away from major urban areas. (Maybe buy a 500k house and live off $30,000/y)? That said I think semi-retire is the best bet. You have $30,000 for existence, and then go and do a gig every now and then for that foreign holiday or home repair or whatever.

You don't have to finish with the same amount you started with. If you aim for finishing somewhere between $2m and $0, you can spend between $40k and $100k per year.

Re: 94k Bitcoin (1B USD) transferred from unknown wallet to unknown wallet

#584
post #568

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are ASICs totally useless for non Bitcoin computing?

Yes, that's what the “AS” stands for.

To be a bit more specific, the ASIC is a computation built in hardware. It can do that computation and that computation alone. The algorithm in Bitcoin does absolutely nothing useful -- you are just hashing a random number and seeing if the result is below a certain value. Since you can't change the computation on the ASIC, it's absolutely useless for anything except mining bitcoins.

Re: 94k Bitcoin (1B USD) transferred from unknown wallet to unknown wallet

#588

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're confusing the real-world version of you that has to pay $20 per transaction with a hypothetical billionaire version of you. People moving large amounts of money around don't do 400,000 transactions at $20 a pop.

As a really stupid, non-real-world comparison

No one gets to escape the real world.

Re: 94k Bitcoin (1B USD) transferred from unknown wallet to unknown wallet

#589
post #583

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$2m invested with 2% real returns is $40,000/y. So you could provide for your family but I think it would need to be pretty frugal and move away from major urban areas. (Maybe buy a 500k house and live off $30,000/y)? That said I think semi-retire is the best bet. You have $30,000 for existence, and then go and do a gig every now and then for that foreign holiday or home repair or whatever.

You don't have to finish with the same amount you started with. If you aim for finishing somewhere between $2m and $0, you can spend between $40k and $100k per year.

Absolutely, but if you plan on doing this from 30 to 85, say, then it probably won't make much difference, and you might as well save the lions share for medical bills, rainy days or even inheritance down the line.
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