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A 10x more efficient ASIC generation could halve hash rate while doubling the dollar-per-block cost.
I'm not saying this isn't correct, but the days of this kind of efficiency gain are likely over.
"what would it cost an adversary to acquire 51% of hash power for the duration of the attack, and is that cost greater than the potential gain?"
It's hard to quantify right? If you had an average electricity cost and took the latest fleet of hardware what would that cost be currently?
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I will start: the most persistent misconception I encounter is treating hash rate as a direct measure of security. People say "Bitcoin is more secure today because hash rate hit an ATH." But hash rate is a proxy, not the thing itself.
The actual security property: the cost to rewrite history is (roughly) the accumulated proof-of-work since the target block. That cost is denominated in hardware + energy expenditure. Hash rate measures one component of that -- but hash rate also changes with hardware efficiency. A 10x more efficient ASIC generation could halve hash rate while doubling the dollar-per-block cost.
The useful question is not "what is current hash rate" but "what would it cost an adversary to acquire 51% of hash power for the duration of the attack, and is that cost greater than the potential gain?" Almost no one frames it that way.