What’s Up With the 51% Attacks?
With the recent spate of 51% attacks in the cryptosphere you may be wondering what’s going on…
And even more importantly, what does it mean for bitcoin?
But first, what’s a 51% attack? It’s when a malicious actor takes over 51% of a network and can then attack it and make fraudulent transactions.
Usually it’s done to double-spend coins, effectively creating free money.
It started in early April with Electroneum getting attacked.
Soon after Verge got hit as well. They recovered quickly as they soon after announced a partnership with PornHub. But it wasn’t to last as Verge got hit in late May yet again.
Now news came out just the other day that Zencash.
For a long time the 51% attack was a theoretical risk, but now it’s happening for real.
Part of the problem are hash pools. So now attackers don’t need to buy the equipment to perform the attack. All they need to do is rent hashpower for just enough time to commit the attack.
You can check out 51crypto which shows the cost per hour to perform an attack and how much hashpower is available through NiceHash, a mining pool.
At risk the most are the smaller coins that use the same hashing algorithm as larger coins. Hashpower can be directed from the larger coin to the smaller coin. And since the smaller coins generally have a much lower hashrate, you can get to 51% pretty easily.
Ubiq is a good example. It uses the same algorithm as Ethereum. There’s plenty of hashpower in mining pools to control its network many times over. And it’ll cost you less than $500 per hour.
A larger coin that might be at risk is Ethereum Classic. Here’s a great Medium post on just how lucrative it might be.
I don’t think it’s a threat to bitcoin however. If anything, like Antonopolous likes to say, it’ll make bitcoin more antifragile.
And I think we’ll see more coins hash into or merge mine with bitcoin like Komodo and Syscoin.
What do you think, will bitcoin get a 51% attack?
and trade cryptos on Binance
I don't think so for the bitcoin as it is there for more than a decade now. But if it gets attacked it would be a great disaster for the whole crypto world!
Well, I think it depends on how the attack does... but if it's successful you're right it would be a disaster.
That's right, the nature of the attack matters.
What are your views on Digibyte? I come to know, it is gonna go high. If you could make a review about it!
Not sure about DGB... Charlie Lee says it's vulnerable - https://twitter.com/satoshilite/status/1002063157681012736?lang=en
It is kinda political thing, some actors do their politics and try to benefit themselves at peak!
Definitely... the motivations for attacking are more than just $$$
There is no way, the SHA-256 algorithm has many smaller coins, the biggest one is Bitcoin. The only way to perform a 51% attack would be to join like the top three bitcoin mining pools. Which will cost way too much.
Hey g-dubs. Good to see you back. Didn't realize it was that easy to perform. I hope they get it sorted sooner as we need good news not negative stuff.
Perhaps one day we heard bitcoin is under attack. No one can tell and everything is possible.
Thanks for the informative post. Great info. As for your question...
No way. Bitcoin can not be 51% attacked. By design, if any group gets enough hash power to 51% attack bitcoin, it is far more lucrative to just mine it. Fully incentiveized to play by the rules.
That is a moot point anyway because bitcoin is the most powerful computer the world has ever seen. A consortium of nation-states and banks computing power combined cannot 51% attack bitcoin.
Most altcoins are so vulnerable because there are very few nodes running and very little hashpower protecting them. Most altcoins don't consider security.
That's why Antonopolous predicted this would happen back in 2014. And he was right. This is just the beginning.
Fear not. Bitcoin is completely invulnerable. Literally can not be stopped.
Thanks for the reply. I think we'll see more altcoins and other blockchains hash into BTC for its security.
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Great blog post sir this is one of the best article in crypto space.
You have covered the whole list sir thanks a lot for sharing.