Quote from: michkima on November 08, 2017, 09:20:36 AM

So I've been reading an article on Coindesk recently, about a new possibility of a 51% attack.

Link here, https://www.coindesk.com/bitcoins-bogeyman-cometh-segwit2x-51-attack/.

From what I understood, it is the ability of a miner with 51% hashing power of the whole network to be able to control bitcoin transactions. They can possibly not confirm a transaction, change a transaction, and other awful effects. This attack almost happened 3 years ago with ghash.io mining pool almost reaching 51% (they were so close, when they reached 50% hashing power).

Now, fast forward to today, this attack is again looking possible because, from what I read, the segwit2x was being pushed by a group of miners, that, if combined, will result to 80% of the hashing power of the world. Well that is assuming the pool members will not leave their respective pools that joined the new york agreement. From my further readings, the people that met for the new york agreement had a close door meeting, hence there is no clear information that discloses what they talked about in there.

What if these people colluded to attack bitcoins using the 51% attack? Do you guys think this is a possibility and will those entities that are pushing for segwit2x attack the network?

This is a very real possibility but how would they benefit from this? With a crashed bitcoin network their existence would be shortlived, thereafter.