Re: Ethereum could afford a 51% attack on Bitcoin, and profit greatly from it
The preparation, the sheer breadth of collusion -- word would get out before they could put the resources in place, and the moral Ethereum devs and nodes would ensure a quick abortion.
I'm not sure that the Ethereum devs would necessarily try to prevent something which might force Bitcoin to switch to PoS. And even if a majority of them will want to abort/revert an attack, doing so will undermine Ethereum's own purpose, since Ethereum has no agreed-upon obligation to save Bitcoin in case of an attack. So even though they could abort/revert a smart contract rewarding a Goldfinger attack if a majority of the stakeholders also agree (otherwise the devs are powerless), unless they are required to do so by law, it would undermine the freedom of Ethereum.I wasn't at all suggesting that devs would respond to prevent Bitcoin from switching. I was only saving devs would respond on moral conscience -- to simply attack another network using Ethereum resources (selling Ether as you said remember?) is not a coonscienable action.
Ah, I see. You are saying that the devs wouldn't try to support an attack, not that they necessarily would try actively to prevent it? In that case, I think you're probably right.
P.P.S. I would actually really much like to see your theory put into practice to prove/disprove us all. Have a feeling we would see so many things happen in wildly different paths to what's been predicted. It would be fun, and we can dream, can we not?
Ha, yeah, I'm sure it would shake things up somehow...
(But in all seriousness, I would personally rather see a good, broad discussion of the risk first, such that no investors are caught unaware of it.)