> Bitcoin is the only real crypto-currency, because it is the only one to have achieved actual decentralization
This is ridiculous because Bitcoin is arguably much more vulnerable to centralized manipulation than fiat money. You only need to compromise 2-3 of the major mining pools and suddenly a 51% attack isn't so unfathomable, and that's just one potential attack vector. The pools obscure the real source of the mining power -- wouldn't it be funny if it was a nation-state who had a backdoor, or even one who was just interested in promoting bitcoin because it makes it so much easier for them to track their citizen's activities and exchanges? What happens if a bitcoin core dev gets compromised? What about MtGox^WCoinbase? What if you wanted to destroy bitcoin, and blew up a hotel where the central bankers^W^Wmajor pool operators were all meeting at the same time, as they've been known to do? etc. Could go on for a long time.
If I wanted to disrupt the Federal Reserve the same way, where do I start? Can I get the interest rate changed by phishing Janet Yellin's Gmail password?
Bitcoin as an experiment in a democratized, decentralized mechanism of exchange that normal people could use as an alternative to conventional payment methods has completely failed. This is, in large part, due to the short-sighted design of the difficulty mechanism, which makes it impossible to mine on commodity hardware. As soon as someone releases affordable hardware that is useful for mining, it defeats itself on the next difficulty bump.
Bitcoin is something weird right now, but it's assuredly not what it was meant to be, because a central cartel of power brokers have it wrapped around their finger and the average citizen can't do anything about it, exactly the circumstance that most early adopters were hoping bitcoin could help solve.
> You only need to compromise 2-3 of the major mining pools and suddenly a 51% attack isn't so unfathomable, and that's just one potential attack vector.
If an attacker manages to gain control of 51% of the processing power, he can either a) choose to earn ~$350,000 per hour playing by the rules (mining to his own address) or b) perform a double spend attack on someone (in which case he needs to own over ~$350,000 and find someone willing to pay him in cash before either the mining pool or the network discovers the attack). Which will he realistically choose? The settlement time for USD is in the order of days. Will he risk a USD transfer being aborted before he can get his money, or play it safe and generate 12.5 bitcoins (~$100,000) within 20 minutes to his own address?
Also, exchanges and nodes can easily see that a fork is ongoing, with just barely half the hashing power on the honest chain. Chances are exchanges would shut down, clients would warn of a 51% attack, and the attacker would be left with the only option of mining honestly on the longest chain to his own address, thus taking money from poorly secured mining pools, but not affecting the stability of Bitcoin.
> What happens if a bitcoin core dev gets compromised?
I don’t know. What do you suggest would be the consequences of a single Bitcoin Core dev getting comprised? I highly doubt any code of his would even be merged into master, much less make it into a release.
> You only need to compromise 2-3 of the major mining pools and suddenly a 51% attack isn't so unfathomable,
Nodes control consensus in bitcoin, not miners. If miners ever 51% attack, the nodes simply change the pow algorithm. Miners get crushed. That's why they don't dare.
You should probably learn how bitcoin works. It's great.
1. How does the entire network just agree to switch to a new algorithm? How do they decide what the new algorithm is?
2. When everybody forks off of the compromised chain, haven't we effectively created an altcoin? What is the value of this nascent altcoin?
3. I'm thinking the value can't be very much, otherwise it would be way out of proportion to the difficulty considering there are not yet any ASICs for the new algorithm. Wouldn't it then be very much worth it for someone to attack it again using, say, a botnet?
I don't think you're actually interested in the answers. Any pow change would simply be a hard fork with no or opt-in replay protection. I say none, because there's no need to provide protection to the compromised chain. The patch will have already been developed. The core developers will already have vetted many pow algorithms, and a decision would be made at the time.
This is ridiculous because Bitcoin is arguably much more vulnerable to centralized manipulation than fiat money. You only need to compromise 2-3 of the major mining pools and suddenly a 51% attack isn't so unfathomable, and that's just one potential attack vector. The pools obscure the real source of the mining power -- wouldn't it be funny if it was a nation-state who had a backdoor, or even one who was just interested in promoting bitcoin because it makes it so much easier for them to track their citizen's activities and exchanges? What happens if a bitcoin core dev gets compromised? What about MtGox^WCoinbase? What if you wanted to destroy bitcoin, and blew up a hotel where the central bankers^W^Wmajor pool operators were all meeting at the same time, as they've been known to do? etc. Could go on for a long time.
If I wanted to disrupt the Federal Reserve the same way, where do I start? Can I get the interest rate changed by phishing Janet Yellin's Gmail password?
Bitcoin as an experiment in a democratized, decentralized mechanism of exchange that normal people could use as an alternative to conventional payment methods has completely failed. This is, in large part, due to the short-sighted design of the difficulty mechanism, which makes it impossible to mine on commodity hardware. As soon as someone releases affordable hardware that is useful for mining, it defeats itself on the next difficulty bump.
Bitcoin is something weird right now, but it's assuredly not what it was meant to be, because a central cartel of power brokers have it wrapped around their finger and the average citizen can't do anything about it, exactly the circumstance that most early adopters were hoping bitcoin could help solve.