Do KYC pools *really* increase the threat of a 51% attack?
534 sats \ 4 comments \ @preturnio 14 Dec 2023 Ask_SN
Via Chris Blec on X:
“2 mining pools (both of them force all miners to KYC) comprise 55% of Bitcoin hash rate.
We could be one chess move away from some big problems for Bitcoin.
But even worse is the fact that nobody really wants to talk about it. Where's the urgency?”
Trying to navigate the responses and troll garbage - to the Stacker News crew: is this accurate? Are we really one short step away from BTC’s global reputation being damaged in such a way that it irrevocably negatively impacts the network?
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1092 sats \ 3 replies \ @rajab 14 Dec 2023 freebie
There's only like 2 things they'd be able to do with a majority hashrate, and even then their success is unlikely. They could censor transactions, which would still get through eventually, as those transactions are mined by other pools. This would be publicly visible activity on sites like miningpool.observer and would be called out. Then they could also do a 51% attack, which would also be publicly visible. I think the risk with the 51% attack is the scenario where they rewrite the chain any time an honest miner includes a censored transaction.
The problem with this is that as soon as such malicious activity is reported publicly, we can safely assume that both of these mining pools will lose a significant amount of hashrate. Meaning they practically only have one shot to censor some transactions until hashrate is pointed elsewhere. Then what? They'd lose all (or at least a majority of) future mining profits, and no one would realistically use them again.
Bitcoin would benefit because it would demonstrate how meaningless this type of attack truly is and it would likely accelerate R&D in mining pool tech. It might also show how shit KYC and get more people on-board with avoiding all forms of KYC when it comes to using Bitcoin. So yeah, IMO, this is just an old argument that's been "hashed out" over and over, and is a total nothingburger.
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121 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bitcoinisawesome 15 Dec 2023
HA, hashed out. Great response! This picture can be used to paint a picture of centralization but it is misleading because there are independent actors within those large pie slices.
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @preturnio OP 15 Dec 2023
If they had 51% of the network, is censoring transactions the real risk? Isn’t the threat modifying transactions?
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111 sats \ 0 replies \ @rajab 16 Dec 2023
No one can "modify" a transaction except for the holder of the private key that signed it. They could only (attempt to) censor in the way stated in my reply above.
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