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Had a SUPER interesting discussion tonight on $ETC 51% attack with a group of top miners. Literally each one of them can easily do it. We talked about cost, timing, feasibility and ethics of 51% attack.
TLDR: 51% attack is the evolutionary feature of PoW coins. Thread 👇
TLDR: 51% attack is the evolutionary feature of PoW coins. Thread 👇
1/ Haseeb had a nice explanatory thread of wha happened
$ETC is using the same algo as $ETH with 4-6% of the hashrate. As long as you have access to rent 2-3% of $ETH's, which is quite accessible on nicehash.com you will be able to attack it
$ETC is using the same algo as $ETH with 4-6% of the hashrate. As long as you have access to rent 2-3% of $ETH's, which is quite accessible on nicehash.com you will be able to attack it
2/ The cost of it is relatively low as NiceHash is a on-demand hashrate markeplace . From the chart you can see nicehash can cover 100% of $ETC and $DASH is on the verge of over 50% NiceHash-able, which can be an ideal target for another 51% attack down theh road
3/ In order to 51% attack $ETH, you will need to negotiate the with multiple big mining farms as NiceHash doesn’t carry enough hashrate. Such negotiation is quite hard since the top 4 pools combined obtain over 72% of ETH hashrate. But it's non zero chance that they may collude
4/ The timing is also very interesting:
12 month ago, $ETC’s hashrate was even lower than its current level but with 8x of the price, to maximize the profit, bull market is better timing. @bit_kevin confirmed it as "the attacker is very nice by attacking it in a bear market" 🤣
12 month ago, $ETC’s hashrate was even lower than its current level but with 8x of the price, to maximize the profit, bull market is better timing. @bit_kevin confirmed it as "the attacker is very nice by attacking it in a bear market" 🤣
5/ Another benefit of attacking during bull market is that higher price sensitivity/volatility + thicker order book in options trading can make the attacker more money on shorting than just the double spent part. So why not the attacker attacking in optimal timing?
6/ One reasoning on the timing might be currently there are lots of excessive GPU hashrate since the market crash. GPU mining profit is approaching 0. Previously, GPU mining could net investors up to $150 per month per unit on various coins ( $ETH, $ETC, $ZEC, $XMR etc)
7/ GPU mining had relatively low barriers to entry, many small miner and crypto enthusiasts joined the game during the crypto boom, especially before the release of ZEC/ETH ASIC. Now due to the price crash and ASIC on coins which were mined by GPU, GPU is largely oversupply
8/ We also see the oversupply GPU hashrate led to an over-crowded mining rush of Beam/Grin, the two MimbleWimble coins. Beam, only 5 days after the launch on 1/3, its hashrate is over 2.5MSol/s, close to the entire $XMR hashrate
10/ We had a round of discussion on "whether it's ethical to 51% attack" This might surprise many folks - most of them agree with what @bit_kevin said in the screenshot. 51% attack is a natural way of survival of fittest of crypto, the fittest here is the most secured one
11/ Currently with centralized exchange, there is still remedy of future 51% attack like long confirmation or limit on deposit etc. In a really crypto-native set up, with DEX/Shapeshift style liquity platforms' dominance, 51% attack is inevitable
12/ What’s more important, having 51% as a feature, it’s actually a protection against forking of the same hashing community. Foking will dilute the security level and makes remaining more vulnerable. (In the pic is the earliest BTC miner in China and founder of HaoBTC and Bixin)
13/ There is an interesting analogy brought up that, PoS is Aristocracy vs PoW is Meritocracy. Many miners' resent on POS is from a very pragmatic tho fundamentally insightful view (will try my best to explain in English LOL
14/ PoW is a natural way to enforce "separation of power". It's not about decentralization or about fairness. Its cash burning mechanism makes it impossible for miners to save up tons of coins become monopoly over the commodity money, they have to sell to cover cost
15/ Miner, or in PoS the validator is the guardian of the protocol. Coin being minted is the commodity resource in the econ system. PoW enforces a separation of the two roles: protocol guardian vs commodity resource owner. Hence it makes “social mobility” possible within the eco
There are TONs of great insight from this group. I hope one day AI can be sufficient enough to bridge the language barrier so we human coordinate and exchange much better, and you can hear from them first hand.
The overnight discussion is quite intense, will try to update later
The overnight discussion is quite intense, will try to update later
