[zooq_ai]

Governments, Big Corps can easily co-ordinate a 51% attack on any proof-of-work networks.

If BTC's marketcap is $1T and it'll only take $5B for a 51% attack, there can be some arbitrage opportunity for a large hedge fund determined enough.

The only thing preventing this is the attacker must execute this flawlessly including attacking all the forks that may happen.

[monero-xmr]

The problem is the government has to acquire the hardware. There isn’t 51% of the hash power in spare mining equipment lying around. It’s all decentralized.

[aforwardslash]

You're assuming you dont have state sponsors heavily invested in it already - and have been for years. Which is actually kind of hilarious, as it also assumes the blockchain is safe from other threat models. I wouldn't be surprised if a significant chunk of bitcoin movements were state sponsored; its the next logical move - first you build a brivate internet, then you build a private currency.

[zooq_ai]

Ummm really?, is that your counter-argument for governments that have Trillions in their budget?

[monero-xmr]

The US government could spend trillions to surreptitiously manufacture extremely specialized equipment without anyone knowing, turn it on to do a 51% attack, and when it’s over the network will just fork and reverse the transactions. It’s illogical

[nullityrofl]

I think it's fair to say that western cryptologic agencies could likely repurpose hardware, perhaps to a degree unknown in the public space.

[zooq_ai]

delusional to think, the western governments can't attack the forked version too.

Also, who decides which transactions to reverse? and why would an entity with 51% power agree to that?

No one in crypto has thought through this

[monero-xmr]

Yep you’re the first person to ever consider this - tell the world!

[ramchip]

There's also a legal risk for private entities, as the conviction of Avraham Eisenberg showed recently, and I think a strong possibility that a successful attack would crash the valuation of BTC and make it impossible to recoup costs.

[jbverschoor]

That’s not what a 51% attack can do. It doesn’t allow you to “steal” money

[tromp]

It allows you to double spend, which is pretty much stealing from the first recipient...