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A comment on BitFinex down due to Bitcoin security breach - 120k BTC stolen. Parent comment

Re:BitFinex down due to Bitcoin security breach - 120k BTC s... by patio11 on Tuesday August 02, 2016 @09:06PM (#12214766)
Oh it gets better! The attackers can do things like entangle their stolen Bitcoin in systemically important institutions. Say, send 0.01 BTC to Coinbase. Coinbase is probably not operationally capable of separation that Bad Bitcoin from their Good Bitcoin before it's been comingled with customer funds. At that point, reversing T would also invalidate consequential transactions by Coinbase, which is probably something they can't allow to happen, so they would pay miners to not reverse.

Comedy. Gold!

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Re:BitFinex down due to Bitcoin security breach - 120k BTC s... by 0x0 on Tuesday August 02, 2016 @09:10PM (#12214794)
It sounds like miners could find a replacement revenue stream even if block rewards go to zero and transaction fees are low: Hold the blockchain hostage for reversal and sell out to the highest bidder!

(Of course, this would likely drive the value of 1 BTC to exactly $0)

(Edit: This is all a demonstration of how the security of the blockchain absolutely depends on mining hashpower being widely decentralized and distributed)

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Re:BitFinex down due to Bitcoin security breach - 120k BTC s... by topynate on Wednesday August 03, 2016 @07:37AM (#12217216)
Which is one of the more practical reasons a rollback is very, very unlikely to happen. (It would have been fairly unlikely even in the case of ethereum/theDAO, had not the nature of that exploit effectively locked the funds for a month.)
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