Post
Topic
Board Economics
Re: Economic Totalitarianism
by
cbeast
on 20/08/2015, 00:13:36 UTC
BTC flawed 'cause 51% attack? He didn't say anything we didn't already know...

I didn't think Snowden's thoughts on bitcoin were entirely that bad, and agree that it regarded nothing that most people haven't already accepted ie possibility of 51% etc etc.

A 51% attack can create as many Bitcoins as it wants to.

I think Bitcoin investors do not really believe it can happen, because they would not invest in inflatacoin.

But it is much more likely than they believe.

First of all, it would require a lot of money to invest in equipment. Orders like this are hard to keep secret. Someone would investigate. It would have to be a sustained 51% for many many blocks or else the miner would be DDOSd, IP blacklisted, or worse. That would end their Bitcoin career, and if they are lucky they could sell their used equipment to partially recoup their millions. That equipment would then make Bitcoin stronger against the next attack. If they were successful for any length of time, the price of Bitcoin would plummet (markets would close) and they would not be able to sell their fake bitcoins anyway. Besides, the people with that much money to throw away are unconcerned about Bitcoin anyway because they don't care about anyone's future but themselves.