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We can confirm that there was a successful 51% attack on Ethereum Classic

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Re: We can confirm that there was a successful 51% attack on Ethereum Classic

#221

Post by Applejinx »

sgeisler wrote: post #162
lokedhs wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are they though? I'm honestly curious as to what those things could be. A lot of people talk about good uses of blockchains, but all examples I've seen are either not actually good uses, or they have some flaw that makes practical implementation impossible (or at least highly unlikely). What examples of good use of blockchains are you thinking of?

* Trustless time stamping to proof that you had certain information at a certain point in time without revealing it https://opentimestamps.org/ * (depending on your stance on personal liberty) censorship resistant, pseudonymous e-cash/e-gold (Bitcoin)

I may be failing to understand, but:

If the whole concept is trustless decentralized (fill in the blank ???) profit, meaning that you can make currency or a timestamp or whatever else using blockchain,

and a sufficiently large force can basically fork off of an earlier block, race ahead in secret and then take over the currency or timestamps or whatever else the blockchain's about,

does this not render the replaced fork useless? As in, if it's money it doesn't count and you lost everything, if it's a timestamp it's not proof because it's not the blockchain anymore, etc?

I guess this is one way to make it so raw power is the only thing that matters, expressed as 'ability to marshal computer resources on a massive scale', which costs money and so it becomes circular. Power/money gives you power/money and so on. Given enough power/money you can simply take over Bitcoin: could be happening right now.

Nice :P

Re: We can confirm that there was a successful 51% attack on Ethereum Classic

#223

Post by notahacker »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #184
CydeWeys wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What works for companies doesn't work for cryptocurrencies. Companies have actual assets and cash flows, while cryptos do not. Companies are routinely acquired for a bonus above the total market cap (a premium on the share price times all shares outstanding). The same would never happen for cryptos. A better analogy would be to calculate the "market cap" of gold.

> What works for companies doesn't work for cryptocurrencies. Companies have actual assets and cash flows, while cryptos do not. This isn't actually relevant. Calculating market cap based on current trading price is equally valid for company stocks and cryptocurrencies. The divide is not between "companies" for which market capitalization is good and "cryptocurrencies" for which market capitalization is misleading, i…

It is relevant, because daily trading volumes aren't fixed, and if major shareholder in a company with decent expectations' of a sustained flow of profits starts offloading shares, the price doesn't need to drop very much to get institutional investors interested in buying that equity to hold it.

On the other hand Shifty Joe's Investment Scam LLC and crypto-tokens don't really have a price floor, but that's because neither of them have any assets or reliable stream of future income attached to ownership.

Re: We can confirm that there was a successful 51% attack on Ethereum Classic

#224

Post by RealityVoid »

rando444 wrote: post #215
labster wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only we had a currency that was immune to 51% attacks because a government was willing to use force to preserve its value, and therefore doesn't need a massive use of energy for its proof of work.

Estonia was planning (and announced) something along these lines .. but the EU basically told them no. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-01/estonia-c...

I think OP was being facetious and was referring to normal currencies.

Re: We can confirm that there was a successful 51% attack on Ethereum Classic

#225

Post by tim333 »

Some updates. Money stolen about $1.1m:

>exchange has since uncovered another 12 attacks that “included double spends, [now] totaling 219,500 ETC ($1.1 million) https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2019/01/08/ehtereum-classic-...

Cost of attack according to https://www.crypto51.app/ about $5k

Re: We can confirm that there was a successful 51% attack on Ethereum Classic

#226

Post by tim333 »

pslam wrote: post #57
ajkjk wrote: post #53

I'm not sure I think the word 'attack' is right here. Crypto by design says that if anyone controls over half the network, they get to say what happens. Sounds like democracy, specifically the 'tyranny of the majority': over half the network votes that they get more of your money, so they do! Of course if you're in the other 49% you might feel attacked, but ultimately this is working as intended.

The intent is a currency which can be reliably used for exchange of goods and services. This would seem to cause a failure of the basic reason for its existence.

The intent of democracy was a sensible way of running countries but it seems to show similar failures. This is leading presently to quite a lot of odd debate in the UK on how having another democratic vote would be a betrayal of democracy and similar.

Re: We can confirm that there was a successful 51% attack on Ethereum Classic

#227

Post by tim333 »

GrumpyNl wrote: post #194

Doesnt this mean that the coin is worthless when people are able to manipulate the value of coins like this? Why would you still invest in these coins when you know this is possible.

They stole $1.1m out of a cap of $542m approx and will hopefully be more careful next time?

Re: We can confirm that there was a successful 51% attack on Ethereum Classic

#230

Post by brianwawok »

matte_black wrote: post #91
baddox wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you think there would be any such prestige earned?

It’s not very often you get a chance to take down a currency. In 30 years from now you’ll be able to brag about how back in your day you took down entire cryptocurrencies with 51% attacks.

In 30 years no one will use crypto and people that invested in crypto will be laughed at.
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