This threat seems very, very likely at some point. The cost of an attack wouldn't actually be that much to pull off. Even a short term (i.e. much cheaper) attack could completely destabilize the faith people have in Bitcoin.
Are we just waiting for an attack to occur before actually doing anything?
An attacker that isn't motivated by money will eventually attempt an attack. This isn't an "if", it's a "when".
Some billionaire, inherited wealth rich kid could completely devastate Bitcoin for under $50 Million.
Some people love to wreck shit. Rich guys that love to wreck shit? It could get ugly.
Somebody console me. I want to be wrong. What am I overlooking?
It is not cost effective to attack Bitcoin for economic reasons... $50 million to gain what? Double spend 1 million?
If done for malicious reasons at any price, it could be attacked. The community could then decide
to fork to alternative proof of work hashing algorithm. Yes there would be damage done
and some transactions rolled back but I think Bitcoin would live on.
Of course it would live on, but the problem is that if we fork we might end up like Vericoin, but at a much larger scale, which is bad for everyone. Merchants that got paid and shipped the items would find their payment missing from their wallet, all around the world.
Governments could bribe or take over cex/pool and attack bitcoin, since it's competing and winning their pieces of paper.