Post
Topic
Board Development & Technical Discussion
Merits 5 from 5 users
How strong is Bitcoin against 51% attack !
by
btj
on 09/06/2018, 22:28:24 UTC
⭐ Merited by bitmover (1) ,HeRetiK (1) ,BenOnceAgain (1) ,d5000 (1) ,ETFbitcoin (1)
In order to calculate how much money do you need to perform a 51% attack on bitcoin:

Current hashrate (Total network hashrate): 36349358,259 TH/S (From https://blockchain.info/stats)

We choose our miners from here:
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison

Let's take for example: Antminer S9
Hashrate = 14 TH/S
Consumption = 1.375 kW


Cost of harwares:
Hardware = Current hashrate * Price of Antminer S9 / Hash produced by Antminer (per seconds)
Hardware = 36349358,259 * 2400$ / 14
Hardware ~=  6,231,318,559 $

Number of antminers = Hardware / 2400 ~= 2,596,382


Cost of electricity:
Electricity consumption per day = Number of antminers * consumption * 24
Electricity consumption per day = 2,596,382 * 1.375 * 24
Electricity consumption per day ~= 85,680,606 kWh

Electricity cost per day = Electricity consumption per day * Cost per 1kWh
Electricity cost per day = 85,680,606 * 0.045$ (Electricity pricing - Depend on countries)


So attacker have to pay 3,855,627 $ of electricity per day !

This without make calculation of transport, renting or buying local where to install all this stuff, without counting the difficulty to get this number of miners and electricity power required to get them working all.

And counting the risk that the attack will not be a success and many other factors ...

If you want to know more about Difficulty and Hashrate: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Difficulty

I made calculation 2 days ago from here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4429114.msg39597354#msg39597354

In the space of two days, we can see this changes:
Hardwares:
Today = 6,231,318,559 $
2Days ago = 5,936,594,032 $

Difference ~= 294,724,527$
Additional AntMiners ~= 122,802


Electricity:
Today = 3,855,627$
2Days ago = 3,673,266$

Difference ~= 182,361$

In the current state of things, it's near impossible to attack Bitcoin ! This show how this coin is strong now.