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Sabotaging Bitcoin

blog.dshr.org

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Re: Sabotaging Bitcoin

#32

Post by wslh »

kfrzcode wrote: post #10
gerdesj wrote: post #2

TIL: https://ccaf.io/cbnsi/cbeci - quite horrifying! EDIT: For comparison: https://gridwatch.co.uk/

Meanwhile, Hedera remains carbon negative and 7 orders of magnitude more efficient than Bitcoin. "Today, Hedera is performing the equivalent of over 10,000,000 transactions and 788,000 transactions for the same amount of energy it takes Bitcoin and Ethereum to process 1, respectively." [0]: https://hedera.com/blog/going-carbon-negative-at-hedera-hash... [1]: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10160701/

Databases either?

Re: Sabotaging Bitcoin

#34

Post by mvkel »

roenxi wrote: post #28

The Eyal & Sirer paper is pretty interesting - they basically point out that there is actually some game theory involved in when miners should reveal that they mined a block to compete most effectively with their fellows. If a pool can set up a situation where they mine a block and wait X seconds to reveal it, they can force other miners to waste X seconds of has power and gain an advantage. It looks like a result wi…

Isn't this the same thing as saying "if everyone just agrees that a dollar bill is actually just a piece of paper, USD becomes worthless"? Albeit at a smaller scale

Re: Sabotaging Bitcoin

#35

Post by spir »

This is good analysis. The main longitudinal aspect omitted is that the profitability of the attack goes up as long as the price of BTC doesn't double or more each halving.

In ~6 more years, Bitcoin will undergo two more halvings, so if the price of BTC is not ~400k by then, then attack will have become more feasible.

Re: Sabotaging Bitcoin

#36

Post by dmurray »

OutOfHere wrote: post #19

The answer to this problem is in the original Bitcoin whitepaper itself. It gives the formula for the required number of confirmations. The Monero PoW community has had to deal with such nonsense, as have other smaller PoW coins. With ε=1e-3, the expected number of 6 confirmations works only so long as the largest pool size does not exceed 12%. For a pool size of 30%, at least 24 confirmations should be required in B…

TFA observes that it would be disruptive and socially difficult to move systems to expect requiring 24 confirmations, and expresses relief that other responses are possible.

Perhaps this is more suitable as a response over months or years to a long-term shift in the composition of Bitcoin miners than as a short-term measure when it appears that someone has suddenly acquired 30% of mining capacity today.

Re: Sabotaging Bitcoin

#37

Post by TheAmazingRace »

Stevvo wrote: post #20

Before the AI bubble, Bitmain was only worth ~$1 billion. Now they are worth ~15, because they make chips for AI also. Either way, you could buy bitmain for the budget mentioned in the attack if it were for sale. Or bitmain could pull off the attack, if indeed they do "control ... all the major mining pools" as the article alleges. But who ultimately controls Bitmain? The Chinese state. So, by extension, bitcoin is c…

Too many people have a vested interest in keeping Bitcoin going for as long as possible, sadly. It's going to take a massive black swan of some kind to shake their faith.

Heck, they can embed CSAM into the Bitcoin blockchain and that won't stop anyone from using it, because above all else, line must go up.

Re: Sabotaging Bitcoin

#39

Post by gerdesj »

bujkopl wrote: post #38
gerdesj wrote: post #2

TIL: https://ccaf.io/cbnsi/cbeci - quite horrifying! EDIT: For comparison: https://gridwatch.co.uk/

Since when is incentivizing low cost renewable energy horrifying?

My first link shows that Bitcoin consumes roughly 40GW and my second link shows that the UK roughly does too.

There are a lot of ifs and buts here ... but the amount of power used to support the BT mechanism worldwide is roughly the same as the power consumption of the entirety of the UK.

Re: Sabotaging Bitcoin

#40

Post by ShowalkKama »

kfrzcode wrote: post #10
gerdesj wrote: post #2

TIL: https://ccaf.io/cbnsi/cbeci - quite horrifying! EDIT: For comparison: https://gridwatch.co.uk/

Meanwhile, Hedera remains carbon negative and 7 orders of magnitude more efficient than Bitcoin. "Today, Hedera is performing the equivalent of over 10,000,000 transactions and 788,000 transactions for the same amount of energy it takes Bitcoin and Ethereum to process 1, respectively." [0]: https://hedera.com/blog/going-carbon-negative-at-hedera-hash... [1]: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10160701/

I find extremely funny that I came across this spammy comment while sitting on a vulnerability in their code because my attempts of contacting them have been unsuccessful
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