use Bitcoin and Litecoin and you are fine.
Relative to the Alt Space you are correct...
But neither is even remotely secure relative to your average American bank or stock broker.
Security is all about diversification.
Topic: Bitcoin Core Developers say Altcoins are unsecure (Read 1980 times)
Relative to the Alt Space you are correct...
But neither is even remotely secure relative to your average American bank or stock broker.
Security is all about diversification.
The more popular a coin, the higher the price, the more people mine = more computing power distributed = more secure coin.
do you know what cryptography is ?
as in crypto coins ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptography
more computing power distributed = more secure coin
this is the right answer.
this is the right answer.
distribution yes, no raw hash power.
microguys point on incentive is also the case, most people take security measure on face value, not taking into account people thinking outside the square, an eg even though it'd be hard for an individual's comp power to attack btc, a pool could be formed, offer crazy incentives for people to join (while hiding the figures until combining all at time of attack), its concievable, not that hard and not that expensive.
I can figure plenty of ways to attack any crytpos, i like many just don't ann them here as it'd give others ideas.
more computing power distributed = more secure coin
this is the right answer.
this is the right answer.
Not exactly. I think the price of the coin also needs to be taken into consideration due to the incentive factor.
more computing power distributed = more secure coin
this is the right answer.
this is the right answer.
So my question is: Why are Altcoins unsecure?
No need for malice or incompetence, simple technical reasons are quite sufficient:
- not enough hashrate to defend the Proof of Work (obvious), and/or not enough mining pools
- not enough staking wallets or funds staking to secure Proof of Stake (less obvious, but just as real)
- too many funds in one or two exchanges (security is then only as good as that of the exchange...)
- difficulty retargets happening too fast that can allow forks to thrive
- few people monitoring the blockchains/network (while bitcoin's is monitored 24/7 by many individuals)
The last point is probably key: if something (anything) goes wrong with the bitcoin blockchain, you can be sure it will be noticed quickly, and broadcast widely, exchanges can suspend trading, code can be fixed, etc. yes, it will be a PITA, but it also makes bitcoin very very resilient because it does not just depend on algorithms.
The top altcoins are looked after, but for all too many altcoins, you'll be lucky if there is even a working blockchain explorer... many noteworthy altcoins even went for days or weeks without working explorers, this basically means that nobody monitored them, and they were running on hash and prayer.
Definitely agree with the last point too.
I've got some Primecoins (XPM) and the dev. seems to have abandoned it and the forum is like a ghost town.
I should have bought BTC with the money instead.
Lol,Hindsight is a wonderful thing indeed.
Well even LTC doesn't have enough hashrate to prevent an attack and to be secure enough.
Bitcoin is leading with security no matter what people say. It's unlikely that any coin will take over Bitcoins place right now, maybe later..
Bitcoin is leading with security no matter what people say. It's unlikely that any coin will take over Bitcoins place right now, maybe later..
but that's the misconception though larger hash (after a point) doesn't mean more secure. ltc actually more secure on many fronts then btc.
I'd say to the guy in the video, people in glass houses 
Yes. The fact is Satoshi often times held 75% of the Bitcoin hashrate, then later vanished into thin air with over 1 million bitcoins, right at a time when he claimed the network was vulnerable to attack (see his last post). That's documented history. The fact is, many altcoins are just as secure as bitcoin.
Take Goldcoin (GLD) for example which features a unique 51% defense system, something lacking entirely in Bitcoin.
There are so many altcoins and the hash rate that's deployed nowadays across all those coins get diluted quite a bit. Altcoins become insecure as soon as they don't have enough decentralized hash rate mining them.
Don't forget that it was only one bitcoin user. Then 2. Then now. So it's kind of weird that bitcoin dev spread FUD about altcoin.
Bitcoin's dev should focus on bitcoin - and maybe see how they can ''copy'' and improve some alt features. Bitcoin's force is the network hashpower and popularity. But it's a lot of things to improve still. It's slow, it's an energy monster, it's more and more centralized, it's unpractical to use.
In fact, we can imagine that for daily transactions, bitcoin won't be the one to rule them all ! So it would be better to focus on working togetter with some solid alt instead of bashing them.
PS : I know - my english is not that good.
Bitcoin's dev should focus on bitcoin - and maybe see how they can ''copy'' and improve some alt features. Bitcoin's force is the network hashpower and popularity. But it's a lot of things to improve still. It's slow, it's an energy monster, it's more and more centralized, it's unpractical to use.
In fact, we can imagine that for daily transactions, bitcoin won't be the one to rule them all ! So it would be better to focus on working togetter with some solid alt instead of bashing them.
PS : I know - my english is not that good.
use Bitcoin and Litecoin and you are fine.
For PoW coin, beside litecoin, the rest of the altcoin can be easily attacked using 51% attack.
Alt coin exchanges already have measured against this type of attack by needing a lot of confirmation.
Alt coin exchanges already have measured against this type of attack by needing a lot of confirmation.
because they are not Bitcoin duh.
also they don't have Petahashes of Mining power centralized into a few Pools and soon a few central planners, thus they are messy and can not be organized.
so they are just really blowing in the wind because they have no central planning like Bitcoin has.
once Bitcoin has its Central Bank and Global ID, you can forget all so called "Alts"
The more popular a coin, the higher the price, the more people mine = more computing power distributed = more secure coin.
I think they are referring to the fact that sometimes there is a malware in altcoins wallets.
I'd like to know the opposite. Why do u think they are secure ? How can u even expect that a pump n dupm scheme, that is being distributed against Bitcoin (i.e. to raise Bitcoin) will be secure ?
e.g. Satoshi believed in his creation so much that he dint sell is stash as of yet. Now, look at ether. They are pre-selling it
I'd say to the guy in the video, people in glass houses
So my question is: Why are Altcoins unsecure?
No need for malice or incompetence, simple technical reasons are quite sufficient:
- not enough hashrate to defend the Proof of Work (obvious), and/or not enough mining pools
- not enough staking wallets or funds staking to secure Proof of Stake (less obvious, but just as real)
- too many funds in one or two exchanges (security is then only as good as that of the exchange...)
- difficulty retargets happening too fast that can allow forks to thrive
- few people monitoring the blockchains/network (while bitcoin's is monitored 24/7 by many individuals)
The last point is probably key: if something (anything) goes wrong with the bitcoin blockchain, you can be sure it will be noticed quickly, and broadcast widely, exchanges can suspend trading, code can be fixed, etc. yes, it will be a PITA, but it also makes bitcoin very very resilient because it does not just depend on algorithms.
The top altcoins are looked after, but for all too many altcoins, you'll be lucky if there is even a working blockchain explorer... many noteworthy altcoins even went for days or weeks without working explorers, this basically means that nobody monitored them, and they were running on hash and prayer.
Well they would say that wouldnt they? Though I suppose the networks can be less secure and more prone to 51% attacks etc.
Maybe some of them, but not all of them 
I guess it totally depends on the altcoin. I don't really believe that altcoins like Litecoin or Dogecoin are insecure for day-to-day purposes, since their hashing power still is somewhat big and rather well distributed. But when it comes to all those scam coins that are merely pumps and dumps, like you already suggested, the hashing power isn't high enough and not distributed well enough so that some single entity may take over the complete coin!
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