What would happen if bitcoin were to suffer a 51% attack? It’s a hypothetical question, but one that has troubled some of the community’s brightest minds. Just as army generals play out countless war games, enacting doomsday scenarios, bitcoin defenders like to ponder ways in which the decentralized cryptocurrency could be attacked and brought to its knees.
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Contingency Planning for a Worst Case Scenario
A 51% attack, also known as a majority attack, refers to a situation in which a single miner or group of miners control the majority of the network hashrate. If attained, this would enable a bad actor to censor and reverse transactions, allowing them to double spend coins. One of bitcoin’s greatest attributes is its immunity to attacks, be they governmental or technological. With over 31 exahash now concentrated on the bitcoin network, launching a 51% attack would be virtually impossible. And yet the very act of contemplating such an event is critical in mitigating the likelihood of it ever occurring.
Bitcoin war games aren’t just larping: they’re strategic defense.
51% Is Probably Not Enough
In a widely read article last month, Jimmy Song pondered various hostile mining scenarios, including those presented by chip manufacturers, ASIC manufacturers, and mining pools. He ran through the ways in which a 51% attack could play out, but observed that owning 51% of the harshrate may not be enough to take over the bitcoin network. According to Song, an attacker armed with 60% of the hashrate would still be expected to take 100 minutes to overtake the rest of the network in confirming blocks. Meanwhile, the rest of the network would have caught on to what was
