Post
Topic
Board Speculation
Re: Why The Fair Price Of Bitcoin Is $0
by
Qoheleth
on 06/12/2013, 16:29:42 UTC
Yes, however, if you are only using it for a transfer of value and not a store of value, any crypto currency will do as long as it has not been hacked, and so far, none of them have been, without the community knowing about it. Correct?
I might be misinterpreting your definition of "hacked", but I still disagree.

First off, using it as a store of value is irrelevant; transfer of value is exactly the scenario in which a 51% attack (or a probabilistic 30% attack or so forth) matters. Once the coins are in your wallet and buried hundreds of blocks down, reorgs are not really useful to an attacker except as an act of terrorism.

Second off, a lower-hashpower, lower-confirmation-time blockchain (e.g. nearly every altcoin in existence right now) is more likely to reorg in regular use, which means it's easier to claim (while wearing your mining hat) that it was a bug or an error rather than a deliberate 51% attack to facilitate a double-spend.