| I find your claims that "worry comes in when a 51% minor is a bad actor" and "safe in GHash's hands" to be conflicting. All it takes is one bad actor at GHash, as supposedly happened with the gambling incident, and suddenly you've got a problem again. Just because GHash is successful now does not mean they won't change. Let's imagine a future where CEX.io decides to ditch GHash. GHash no longer has any form of profit (0-fee pool) and thus has no incentive to remain honest. Satoshi's logic, that a large minor would have a selfish interest to be honest, actually completely falls down when it comes to mining pools. Mining pools have massive power, and yet (in this case) get 0 profit. GHash could easily have nothing invested in bitcoin while still having control of a large gashing power. Now on to the other things you said. "Would Bill Gates ... for a penny?" is a terrible analogy. For one, this isn't a penny. 51% attacks could allow GHash to steal millions and extort further. They would also allow someone with a vendetta against bitcoin do do real damage... And the risk isn't nearly as severe as jumping in a volcano. A more relevant analogy might be "Would a company commit tax fraud on the order of a million dollars and risk being caught" (yes many have) or "would an executive steal from the company he works at and, when they notice, cut and run." Your theoretical for what happens on a 51% attack is also silly. There would be signs of some attacks (like consistent double spending on high-confirmation things), but other attacks like extortion-for-inclusion could be silent for as long as the victims don't speak up. Furthermore, people wouldn't leave overnight.. not that many did when GHash performed attacks the last time. In addition, people are highly unlikely to change. Things won't drop off over night. They weren't DDOSed last time. Your entire speculation is optimistically assuming there won't be significant doubt and inertia... and betting against human lazyness is rarely a good idea. Finally, you assume GHash is left with nearly worthless bitcoins. Well, sort of. The extortion could lead to them being paid in anything. If the entire company decided to do an attack they'd obviously sell all bitcoins first so any new bitcoins gained through any attack would be pure profit (and wouldn't be worthless for at least several hours until someone notices and news spreads). Furthermore, each employee of GHash that is capable of causing such an attack to occur might not have any bitcoins, even if GHash does. I think that your defense of GHash is flawed, especially considering they've behaved badly in the past. and your arguments in general aren't strong. I see it as fully plausible that if they maintain 51% hashing power for an extended period of time, a bad employee might modify their code for their own profit and then GHash will plead ignorance when it's discovered and carry on. I also see it as fully plausible that if GHash decides to close shop at over 51% they'll choose to go out with a bang and do what thievery and damage they can on the way out. I fully agree with the article that this is a problem. |