Topic: Wall Observer BTC/USD - Bitcoin price movement tracking & discussion - page 22151. (Read 26609134 times)

how do you figure that the top 51% of hashing is Chinese?

As said before, the "small group" will be the top 4-6 miners, who already have enough power to overcome all the others.

That is a paradoxical thing about the bitcoin protocol: no matter how massive he mining network, there will always be a potential enemy with the all power needed to take control of it.  Just as, no matter how big of an army a country has, it will never be big enough to protect it from a military coup...


Yes, they would need to have somewhat more than that (say, 65%) for extra safety against "heroic miners" bringing up their uneconomical miners to fight them.  The cartel would also have to divide their resources between jamming the old chain and mining the new one, constantly adjusting the split so as to retain a majority in both.

However, once the "attack" is announced, many "weak soul" miners would surely switch, followed by the "semi-starving" miners who cannot afford the blockade; so the cartel's position will become more and more comfortable as the "attack" progresses.  Indeed, if the cartel plays the PR well, there may not be any disruption: most everybody would upgrade before the deadline. 


Yes, it would be an altcoin that starts off with the state and history of the bitcoin blockchain, and uses the same keys so that all bitcoin users are automatically users of that chain also.

Anyone can create such an altcoin, by making a few cosmetic changes to the standard software so that the messages can be distinguished.  After publising the 25 M software, a cartel with 51% of the hashpower is able to render the old 21M chain unusable, by orphaning all blocks found by other miners and ignoring all transactions directed at it.  Therefore they can impose any change to the protocol (such as the 25 M limit) that would be less damaging to the clienst than the jamming itself.


First, similar forks happened twice already.  In both cases the developers got most of the miners to agree to the fork, even though it meant rewinding the blockchain by several dozen blocks.  The excuses were quite good, so there was no dispute.

As said above, it is risky to undertake such a move without a comfortable margin, and without a good discourse that would lessen the PR damage.  The cartel members must also stick together for the duration of the "attack".  These conditions did not exist before. (It is only recently that the top 51% became all-Chinese.) Those condition may well exist one year from now.  The motivation, for the top miners, is huge.

Coin
Explanation

You mean double your Bitcoin in a year or less?  Talk about unreasonable expectations
Protip: The 1849 gold rush?  All the money was made in 1848, if you disregard whores, thieves & d00ds selling shovels.
Party's over

  You're right of course. I was thinking out loud trying to figure some kind of price on that risk, to calculate if it's worth it. I don't know how to figure that number mathematically but I can make an estimate anecdotally...

So if I consider this in the same way I consider buying pre order mining rigs, it's like an all or nothing bet. I consider the money gone, then I consider how long to make it back (if the bet pays off and the hardware actually gets shipped - or, in this case, the exchange doesn't run off with my coins)

If you could consistently get 0.1% it would 1000 days to double your money. In a mining deal, I would expect to double my money in the first year at minimum.

Conclusion? Fair price for loans is 0.3 % daily.

Because shit doesn't happen until it does--Aristotelian logic, my friend. Lrn it

@D05GTO:  I liek ur tinfoil hat.

Why did the weekend pump started before the weekend?

Because of the easter stuff maybe, everyone buying BTC to spend on chocolate stores?

You don't think holding the price down to get all the BTC they can isn't happening right now?  Interesting.  Fleecing the early adopters as much as possible.  How do you think all the trolls get funding to launch smear campaigns?   Just hold on and watch the fireworks when the dam is unleashed.   It will take awhile to shake out the weak hands.  

Back to the chalkboard with you, professor.

it would not be a no-brainer, it would be a spectacular show

there would be a hotfix implemented within hours to ignore the attackers blocks until we can find his mining-bunker and blow it up to high heavens  

Because if the need presents itself the more probable outcome would be to change the hashing algorithm use cpu's and kill all asic behemoths and adjust the difficulty to the new hardware scale than what Jorge suggest.

If what you say is true then why has it not happened yet?

The funds, and anyone who only holds bitcoins without moving them, can just wait for the outcome and then upgrade or not, as appropriate.

Like other active bitcoin users, the exchanges and payment processors will have to choose between upgrading their software and working only with the 25 M chain, or sticking to the 21 M chain and having all their coins frozen, until if and when the "attack" fails.   While trading inside each exchange could continue with no problems, all bitcoin withdrawals and deposits would be blocked.  For those companies too, switching (and urging clients to switch) should be a no-brainer.

With merge mining, only 51% is enough.

True, just rape the market and buy most of the coins. Much easier.

Hey!... Tarmi! Are you trying to take over Bitcoin?

first no one comes close to having 50% of the network hashrate https://blockchain.info/pools

second they would need 101% of the network hash rate 50% dedicated to securing their BS version of bitcoin, and the other 50% dedicated attacking the one and only true Bitcoin.

third the great-massive-online-cryptonic-hashrate-cyber-war would make Bitcoins hashrate double overnight.

forth, who's to say we wouldn't come up with a defence against such an attack ( lets all agree to ignore BS blocks coming from the attacker )

lastly, everyone would sell there BS version of bitcoin BTC never to reinvest at any price, because we would CRUSH THEM.

If the need presents itself the more probable outcome would be to change the hashing algorithm use cpu's and kill all asic behemoths and adjust the difficulty to the new hardware scale than what you suggest.

In that case, bitcoin is DEAD. Both the 21M and 25M forks are dead. No one will trust the miners in the 25M fork because that can easily extend it to a 250M fork in the same way. Finally, miners will just mine for nothing valuable.

Congratulations, you have just rediscovered 51% attack.


Yes, but with the reason above, no one will exchange anything valuable with those bitcoin, no matter the 21M or 25M fork

It will be a small group of half a dozen miners, but it will have more than half of the global hashpower.

That's about the stupidest thing I've ever heard.   Even with Memristor technology it would take more than a small group to jam out the global hashpower.  There's billions in infrastructure and it would require trillions to topple.  Not worth the effort.  If you had trillions why bother with taking over the bitcoin hash, just buy most of it up and it's yours.

I discussed that "attack" at length in another thread.  It will be a small group of half a dozen miners, but it will have more than half of the global hashpower.  WIth that power they can still profitably mine the 25 M chain and jam the original one so that it becomes unusable and un-mineable. 

So, for the individual miner, he either joins the cartel on the 25 M chain, and keeps earning as much BTC as before, or keeps mining the old chain, and has all his blocks orphaned by the cartel jamming.  For the typical miner, switching should be a no-brainer.

Moreover, each client who has N coins on the original chain will get another N coins on the 25 M chain, accessible through teh same keys, whether he wants them or not. So each client can upgrade his software (at any time, before or after the fork) and use his coins, or refuse to upgrade and have his coins blocked until if and when the "attack" fails.  On the other hand, if he upgrades and the attack then fails, his coins will still be there on the 21 M chain, unspent.  Again, for the typical user, the decision to upgrade should be a no-brainer.