Re:The Bitcoin hash rate has increased by 28.2% over the las...
by riprowan on Thursday April 21, 2016 @12:38PM
(#11543421)
This is exactly correct. All the hashpower in the world provides zero security if 51%+ of it is not "honest".
Re:The Bitcoin hash rate has increased by 28.2% over the las...
by arnauddri on Thursday April 21, 2016 @11:22AM
(#11542812)
You're perfectly right, thanks for clarifying!
Re:The Bitcoin hash rate has increased by 28.2% over the las...
by hasch on Thursday April 21, 2016 @02:07PM
(#11544158)
good point, but a mining monopoly would destroy the value and hence it's in the self-interest of miners to be diversified. that's an economical self-correcting mechanism on top of this technical mining/reward feedback mechanism.
Re:The Bitcoin hash rate has increased by 28.2% over the las...
by schmichael on Thursday April 21, 2016 @02:23PM
(#11544273)
AFAIK this is the conventional wisdom but not a proven fact. A smart 51% attacker could profit and go unnoticed:
> And contrary to commonly-repeated assertions, a monopolist can engage in subtle attacks that are hard to detect.
http://hackingdistributed.com/2014/06/16/how-a-mining-monopo...
This isn't totally accurate. You need a lot of different miners and a high hash rate for security. The least secure place bitcoin can be is when a single miner controls most of the hash rate.