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.
https://talkimg.com/images/2024/08/07/5VfsD.pngIt 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%.
https://talkimg.com/images/2024/08/07/5Vy9f.pngHow 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?
Thank you, and thanks for your post.
You are right that all that would probably be infeasible, especially when you are assuming that the miners have to be anonymous.
But first of all, in order for the Bitcoin devs to respond, they need to find a
way to respond. They can't exclude the attacking miners, so it seems that they would have to hard-fork to PoS, or something to that effect. (There is currently a discussion about what steps they could take to mitigate an attack on this thread.)
The also don't have to fear being discovered for legal reasons, it seems, since they are not doing anything legal in the lead-up to the attack, and not in carrying out the attack itself, arguably (see the discussion above about this topic).
Now, they might not want to reveal their intentions to their suppliers, as you point out. That is a good point. But at the end of the day, how can the suppliers really know what their buyers are up to and/or who they sell their ASICs to? Will they really make their customers sign a contract not to participate in a 51% attack, and would that even work?
Also, let me just quickly point out again, that the Ethereum stakeholders can buy/bribe existing mining farms. This proposition has apparently been dismissed so far in this discussion thread, almost as if 'honest' is a predicate that "sticks" to you as a miner, which seems odd to me, especially when the whole concept behind PoW blockchains is that the miners 'behave selfishly.'
