Re: Ethereum could afford a 51% attack on Bitcoin, and profit greatly from it
Great posts here and there are some more variables that must be considered. Hash rate fluctuation! Bitmain aims at producing around 50,000 to 100,000 ASICS per month. I am not going through all the devices and provide the numbers for $/TH, but this is an overview I think suffices to sum things up.
It seems as if it were easy mathematics to find out how many miners someone needs for a potentially successful 51% attack, but in reality there are fluctuations of over 60%.
How many miners is an attacker going to order and how long will the consortium of attackers wait? How are they going to stay anonymous when they make the biggest order of ASICS in human kind history? How will that go undetected and not allow the Bitcoin dev team to respond to the inbound attack? What interest does Bitmain have to produce enough ASICS such that an entity can destroy their most important customer network - aka bitcoin? What would Bitmain say if someone walks in and says they need 1.1 mil. miners (S21 Hydro only)? A hash rate spike could destroy the plans and the attackers either need to wait (which they most likely can't afford because the message will be out) or they need to order more miners.
It was also said that 50,000 to 100,000 is ambitious and this refers to all models across the board. I have now taken the fastest ASIC in my example. The attack would cost around $8 billion in hardware only. While someone might argue that the cost would go down due to requested large scale production, you could as well argue that the cost will go up because ASICS involve rare resources and in this case demand might actually drive the price up.
It is not feasible in my opinion. The logistics would be unbelievable. How would it even be set up? Where? Pools are called pools because they pool hash rate from all around the world and demand for electricity is distributed. In this scenario an attacker would have to set up the whole infrastructure in one hidden place. How would sufficient electricity be provided? How long would it take to set up the operation and what is the chance by the time it is set up that the miners aren't getting closer to obsoletion and more miners would be needed to make up for increased efficiency in newer devices?
It seems as if it were easy mathematics to find out how many miners someone needs for a potentially successful 51% attack, but in reality there are fluctuations of over 60%.
How many miners is an attacker going to order and how long will the consortium of attackers wait? How are they going to stay anonymous when they make the biggest order of ASICS in human kind history? How will that go undetected and not allow the Bitcoin dev team to respond to the inbound attack? What interest does Bitmain have to produce enough ASICS such that an entity can destroy their most important customer network - aka bitcoin? What would Bitmain say if someone walks in and says they need 1.1 mil. miners (S21 Hydro only)? A hash rate spike could destroy the plans and the attackers either need to wait (which they most likely can't afford because the message will be out) or they need to order more miners.
It was also said that 50,000 to 100,000 is ambitious and this refers to all models across the board. I have now taken the fastest ASIC in my example. The attack would cost around $8 billion in hardware only. While someone might argue that the cost would go down due to requested large scale production, you could as well argue that the cost will go up because ASICS involve rare resources and in this case demand might actually drive the price up.
It is not feasible in my opinion. The logistics would be unbelievable. How would it even be set up? Where? Pools are called pools because they pool hash rate from all around the world and demand for electricity is distributed. In this scenario an attacker would have to set up the whole infrastructure in one hidden place. How would sufficient electricity be provided? How long would it take to set up the operation and what is the chance by the time it is set up that the miners aren't getting closer to obsoletion and more miners would be needed to make up for increased efficiency in newer devices?