81–90 of 278 posts
Distributed Proof-of-Work is not vulnerable to this: https://org.saito.tech/eliminating-51-attacks-in-proof-of-wo... The community of users simply attaches harder cryptographic proofs to their transactions, forcing up the cost of producing empty blocks. The approach is capable of bankrupting nation-states as a side-effect of eliminating 51% attacks.
The linked Medium posts have a bit more content https://joekelly100.medium.com/how-to-kill-bitcoin-part-1-is... Note that this is from last July, when the price of BTC was significantly lower and thus the price of the attack is likely higher now. That said, this becomes more feasible in the long-run when mining is purely funded by transaction fees. Something I don’t see talked about much is the fact that, although Bi…
I always wondered about that and perhaps someone here can explain. After bitcoin reaches its "full" volume, mining rewards will go away and the only way miner income can stay the same is if transaction fees rise to match. Since the competition of miners basically converges to "block reward is equal to electricity cost equivalent", this would mean transaction costs increase to an insanely huge amount. Not paying the l…
the electricity cost falls significantly with the difficulty, see: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Difficulty
..and: https://breakermag.com/difficulty-adjustment-is-why-bitcoin-...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Note that China already controls ~65% of Bitcoin hash rate, so if they wanted to execute this right now, they probably could. When you say "China" do you mean like an actor that can make coordinated decisions? Or just a geographic region? I'm asking out of curiosity because yeah there's a lot of miners in China across many geographic regions but I never saw any evidence that they even talking to each other, even le…
I'd make a wild guess that when parent is talking about 'control', they mean that if a miner is located within China, the Chinese government has the ability to put a gun to that miners head and tell them what to do.
You don't need a DoS attack under the assumptions of this project. It's already assumed that you control ~80% of hash rate, so you execute a 51% attack that mass double-spends coins and destroy all confidence in the integrity of the currency. Poof, nobody uses it. Note that China already controls ~65% of Bitcoin hash rate, so if they wanted to execute this right now, they probably could. That they haven't is one reas…
>There is currently no defense for this attack in Bitcoin, as the simulation demonstrates. The entire Bitcoin miner reward model is the defense for this attack. Nation states have powerful computers... but nowhere near as powerful as the decentralized Bitcoin mining network combined. Even if they did currently, the endgame for Bitcoin as envisioned by Satoshi Nakamoto was for everyone on the planet to be mining Bitco…
ASIC chip fabrication is centralised in China. The government could seize the means of production, as well as the centralised mining operations that they've attracted by subsidising electricity.
Governments can purchase large runs of ASICs while other mining will revert to GPU. Controlling 51% of the hash rate in this manner isn't as outlandish.
Further, you're not limited to double spend attacks. If you're the government with a decent advantage, you just treat your own chain as true and never accept blocks from other miners. The reward for mining will collapse, since even if you produce a valid block it'll not be on the longest chain once government miners catch up.
And once the reward for mining collapses you can probably even power down some of the ASICs.
There are counter measures, but combined with attacking the financial onramps and making possession criminal, it's hard for me to believe that BTC would survive an attack like this.
But of course, it's predicated on large governments agreeing it's worth seriously attacking. I don't know how likely that is.
You don't need a DoS attack under the assumptions of this project. It's already assumed that you control ~80% of hash rate, so you execute a 51% attack that mass double-spends coins and destroy all confidence in the integrity of the currency. Poof, nobody uses it. Note that China already controls ~65% of Bitcoin hash rate, so if they wanted to execute this right now, they probably could. That they haven't is one reas…
> China gains no benefit from destroying Bitcoin Right now they don't, no. But to my mind Bitcoin being subject to the whims of a major world power is a big knock against it, given that it aims to be a currency alternative. I don't want such an alternative to subject to any kind of geopolitical mood.
It's not inconceivable (to me at least) that leaders could decide it's personally beneficial to them (or politically beneficial) to damage Bitcoin, even if it cost a ton of their tax payers money.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The protections aren't baked into the protocol because they don't account for external real world motives of nations states which could incent them to act in a "non-economic" way according to the internal rules of the Bitcoin game.
This isn't a temporary speeedbump, it's a permanent end to proof of work mining as an investable activity (and viable sybil resistance mechanism for bitcoin).
If the attacker attempts to keep up the game of cat-and-mouse long enough they will eventually go bankrupt and will no longer be able to participate.
And this theoretical discussion completely dismisses the fact that it's nearly impossible to execute an attack like this at this stage in the game anyway.
You don't need a DoS attack under the assumptions of this project. It's already assumed that you control ~80% of hash rate, so you execute a 51% attack that mass double-spends coins and destroy all confidence in the integrity of the currency. Poof, nobody uses it. Note that China already controls ~65% of Bitcoin hash rate, so if they wanted to execute this right now, they probably could. That they haven't is one reas…
How would a hyperinflation on the US dollar cause civilization to stop? In any case, crypto trading since 2017 has been nothing but people buying and selling imaginary ticker symbols on unregulated exchanges. For example, XVG and ETC has been subject to successful 51% attacks more than once and every time the price was hardly affected. And each time the "solution" to deep chain reorg involved the exchanges freezing a…
Tezos has a fully working Proof of stake system, and there are others. Feel free to share whatever you're on about, but I have a feeling "the debate" will be an exercise in goalpost moving.
You don't need a DoS attack under the assumptions of this project. It's already assumed that you control ~80% of hash rate, so you execute a 51% attack that mass double-spends coins and destroy all confidence in the integrity of the currency. Poof, nobody uses it. Note that China already controls ~65% of Bitcoin hash rate, so if they wanted to execute this right now, they probably could. That they haven't is one reas…
> China gains no benefit from destroying Bitcoin; Citation needed on this one I'm afraid. If nothing else, a currency that the Party cannot control would be A Problem. China did not have much economic benefit in halting the ANT IPO, yet it did not go through all the same. There _might_ be a benefit in allowing bitcoin to continue to exist of course, if they think it advances their cause more than it hurts it. But as…