Quote from: SRG on June 18, 2014, 12:28:58 AM

Quote from: phillipsjk on June 18, 2014, 12:24:26 AM

Quote from: DannyHamilton on June 17, 2014, 09:17:11 PM

Quote from: S4VV4S on June 17, 2014, 09:13:11 PM

Hash rate is part of the 51% attack problem.

Which isn't a problem, so doesn't need to be fixed.

I think you may be underestimating the dangers of mining concentration.
My latest book-mark: How A Mining Monopoly Can Attack Bitcoin

Quote

Loss of decentralized trust narrative, inability to differentiate Bitcoin from competing technologies.
Double-spends against 6-confirmed transactions are certain to succeed.
Selected miner targeting: Pool can reject any selected block found by any competing miner.
Selected transaction targeting: Pool can reject any selected transaction and keep it out of the blockchain.
Selected address blocking: Pool can block Bitcoin flows in or out of selected addresses.
Transaction Differentiation: Pool can deprioritize certain transactions and rely on other miners to mine them unless a (hefty) fee is attached.
Fee Extortion: Pool can deny transactions from a particular address unless a (hefty) fee is attached to those transactions.
Complete denial of service: Pool can ignore and orphan every single block found by competitors, thus stop all Bitcoin transactions.

I think this sums it up nicely. There are lots of things a 51% pool can't do, but there are also a lot of non-armageddon type things that it can. The hacking distributed guys have done a good job laying things out and make a pretty convincing case that bitcoin isn't decentralized if a single entity is at 51%.

Agreed, because these are the main arguments for decentralized systems.