Re:China says it wants to eliminate Bitcoin mining
by jfk13 on Tuesday April 09, 2019 @09:25AM
(#19614315)
And armies. Why doesn't some gang just march into a few of the big hydro-powered ASIC mining centres and take over control, thus enabling them to steal all the bitcoins. What prevents that? The armed power of nation-states to enforce a generally-agreed order on societies.
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Re:China says it wants to eliminate Bitcoin mining
by shawabawa3 on Tuesday April 09, 2019 @10:47AM
(#19615196)
> thus enabling them to steal all the bitcoins
Just FYI, a 51% attack doesn't allow you to "steal all the bitcoins"
Re:China says it wants to eliminate Bitcoin mining
by once_inc on Wednesday April 10, 2019 @04:12AM
(#19622759)
All that would accomplish is taking control of the revenue generated while they are in control. If the big mining centre is working with private keys that are unknown to the operators, then they would not be able to spend the coins previously mined. If they gain control of more than 51% of the hash rate in this way, they would be able to censor transactions or reorg the chain. That would still leave most of the blockchain in tact. A deep reorg might even get forked away from by the rest of the network, leaving them alone in a situation analogous to Ethereum Classic.