it would likely crash the value of Bitcoin, making Ethereum the new number one cryptocurrency.
So far each time bitcoin had dropped, altcoins like ethereum get annihilator without recovering.
For example back in 2017 bitcoin was at $20k and ethereum at 0.15
BTC then bitcoin crashed to $3k and ethereum got destroyed by dumping down to 0.01
BTC.
Today bitcoin is back up to $20k and past that to almost $70k while ethereum is about 0.04
BTCThe cost of a 51% attack has been estimated to be $6–$20 billion [1]. This is only 1.3%–4.4% of Ethereum's current market cap.
You can't 51% attack with money, you'll need hardware. There is no $6-$20 billion worth of hardware for sale!
You can't also pay for it with market cap, they'll need to first own that much ether then dump it to get the money which would crash the price of this shitcoin and won't give them nearly as much as tens of millions let alone billions!
And it is only 0.5%–1.5% of its potential growth if Ethereum knocks down Bitcoin and conquers its full share of the cryptocurrency market.
At the end of the day with or without bitcoin we all know that ethereum is useless. Its only utility is for junk creation (ICO, IEO, STO, NFT, etc.) that have no usages in the real world.
It also has unlimited supply and a mutable blockchain with so many security flaws.
That all means ETH has no potential for growth whatsoever even if bitcoin dies today!
easily afford a 51% attack against Bitcoin, and could profit quite considerably from it.
There is no "profit" in performing an attack because a successful attack would crash the price.
potentially bribe existing Bitcoin miners ~ to make the 51% attack even more feasible.
A miner is running a business and has made a significant investment. Why would a businessman kill his own business by attacking the very thing that is making them profit?
So I want to pose the following question to this discussion forum: What steps will Bitcoin take to mitigate this attack vector, if any?
The step are already taken and it is called PoW!
In particular, is it realistic that Bitcoin will convert to Proof-of-Stake as well in order to prevent such a 51% attack from being profitable?
No because PoS is a fundamentally flawed protocol that opens the way for far worse attack vectors compared to the impossible and super expensive 51% attack.