Quote from: takingthis4 on December 30, 2019, 01:42:14 AM

Quote from: HeRetiK on December 30, 2019, 01:33:50 AM

Quote from: Kahan848 on December 30, 2019, 12:46:16 AM

But what would happen if one state (you know which one) could actualy gain control over more than 51% hash rate though?

You mean the Chinese government? The majority hashrate is already located in China:
https://www.coindesk.com/highest-in-2-years-65-of-bitcoin-hash-power-is-in-china-report-finds

We're still talking about private companies running these mining operations, not the government. The confiscation of private mining facilities to launch a 51% attack seems rather unlikely as China knows better than to kill their own cash cows.

Well depends what their intentions are, they might confiscate all the farms to launch the attack and destroy btc to be able to force on public their own "cryptocurrency". In this way, they would have the best of both worlds, the biggest competitor would be gone, and everyone in china would have no other choice but to use their centralized government shitcoin. It's actually scary what countries as powerful as china can do to bitcoin.

you aren't considering a couple of important things here.
first is that no "company" or mining farm owns anywhere close to 51% of the hashrate, even combinations of multiple one of them don't come to a summation of 51%. the high hashrate percentages you see are mining pools. if a government took control of a pool, the miners connecting to that pool will simply switch to another pool or create a new one.
second is that owning 51% of hashrate or even performing the attack isn't going to damage bitcoin at all. the only thing that can damage it is if they actually perform double spends. which isn't going to be easy not to mention the high cost that it has.