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I refer you to my reply from a few days ago...
I have often felt that the real risk of a 51% attack is control of the network. For instance, a miner with greater than 51% of the hash rate can attempt to reorg out blocks that include transactions it doesn't like.We might say that this would wreck the value of the coin, but imagine it was to reorg out transactions that were from widely disfavored groups: a ransomware gang or a militant islamic group that had released a bioweapon. Less dramatically, do we believe the ETFs and exchanges and treasury companies will give a care if a single miner gains 51% of the hashrate and reorgs out blocks that include OFAC sanctioned transactions?
51% attack doesn't have to mean stealing coins. It can also mean censoring transactions. While I agree that stealing coins would destroy trust in the network, a 51% attack that censors doesn't necessarily kill trust. That is somewhat my point with this post: we are all already fine with majority of hash power colluding to enforce segwit and taproot rules, so what makes you think that Bitcoiners will remain true and honorable and not be okay with miners colluding to work for the state? Would you even know it was happening?
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I normally post in Bitcoin beginners so I'm not trying to get above my station but...
I'll try and answer this llike swapmarket...
A serious attack on the network needs to dominate hashrate for months on end right?
They'll have to burn through billions of dollars in equipment and energy, while every man and their dog watches the mempool not confirming transactions as they did before
The price will crash, mining subsidy is dead in the water and as said before the equipment is useless and they're left holding it
An economic suicide mission
Bitcoin is the biggest goldfish bowl in the world, what other protocol or asset has this amount of visibility or scrutiny
Would we know if something was happening? I think so, yes
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First off, there's no stations. If you have something to say about the topic you should definitely post it. Honestly, I really appreciated your comment because it reminded me of that conversation with SwapMarket (which I couldn't find). Please do post when you feel like it!
I agree that there is a lot of scrutiny on Bitcoin. But I wanted to try to think about how we create little buckets for ideas like
51% attack or censorship, but in reality things are often very fluid -- in this instance, I'm trying to make the case that 51% attack and soft fork aren't so different from each other as far as what actually happens on the chain. It's just one is done cooperatively and another perhaps isn't.reply
One more observation: bitcoin blockchain is too transparent and flows are already censored at the KYC exit rails (with questionable accuracy). All the shady transfers can and do happen on Liquid and Lightning networks. Controlling the miners will yield the state very little.
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The price will crash
I think this assumes big holders care enough, and big holders are ETFs, corporations, whales, and soon maybe even nation states themselves, and I don't think they would care enough if a 51% attack didn't even affect them.
For example, I have to admit that even in a 51% attack, I probably wouldn't sell my bitcoins. It's still better than fiat. At least someone would have to maintain 51% to censor transactions. Also, it would mean I would have to travel far to get them out of cold storage.
Will you go back to fiat just because a few morally questionable people were censored?
I refer you to swap market's brilliant explanation a few days ago...