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Is hash power concentration of over 51% in China a problem?
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Bitcoin
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To answer the question, the deputy President of OKcoin has given his answer.
The following is his answer.
The point that it is problem and danger that more than 51% of hash power is confined to China is just not correct.
70% concentration of hash power in China does not necessarily lead to a 51% attack.
1.Bitcoin network will breakdown after being attacked. Then is this in the interest of holder of 51% hash power? What is the motive behind the attack?
It is as if you have control of 51% of currency printers in the world and you plant to print forged notes, making you losing reputation and trust to the extent that people do not dare to use the notes you printed anymore. Will you make the initial investment including machine factories, equipment and staff wasteful?
2.The hash power is not distributed in one single party
The hash power is distributed at several mining pools and free miners. China’s top three mining pools account for 16.8%, 10.4%, and 8.8% respectively (at press time).There is no single party behind these pools directing united action. Back to 2008~2012, almost 100% of hash power was concentrated in the U.S. Then why the U.S. didn’t launch 51% attack while China’s large power can be problem?
source:Blockchain.info (February 20, 2017)
3.Bitcoin community is a mature community with strong self-correction ability.After 7 years of development, Bitcoin has become the most mature community with error-correction capability. For example in 2014 when news said that Ghshi.io controlled near 51% hash power of the network, mining pools like BitFury just announced it would remove its hash power from Ghsi.io at the speed of 1.5HP/s. The company said, as a leading company and a reliable partner, it made such decision out of its responsibility to the community. This testament shows us that we should be confident the global efforts of the community will eliminate any potential threat.
4.Bitcoin technology and Blockchain technology are becoming mature.
The community now is seeing company like 21 Inc. is building micro-level mining and payment commercial mode, which is making mining more distributed. The underlying technology of Bitcoin is making progress and becoming mature. We should be prudent but also optimistic about it.
In conclusion, 51% attack problems should be analyzed from the consequences of it instead of ideology.
Senior Editor of international site of 8btc Years of experience of working at KPMG, one of the big 4 accounting firms, discerning in disseminating the useful and essential information in bitcoin and blockchain area as he deeply understands that finance, among many areas, can be the most crucial arena where blockchain and related technologies can be applied. Chris was also a senior interpreter and translator before joining 8btc News.
COMMENTS(12)
Here is the link to the original comment thread. Or you can comment here to start a discussion. Author: 8btccom
Yes
/thread
.@starokcoin you need to get your head out of the sand. Jihan is said to be behind all of the new pools. http://news.8btc.com/over-51-of-hash-power-concentrated-in-china-is-it-a-problem …
No more than if it were centralised in America or Europe.
If nationality became an issue, I’m sure other countries could step up their mining efforts.
My hunch is it doesn’t matter as long as the mining pools themselves are dispersed and the incentives remain that a sustained 51% attack would simply devalue the asset thereby hurting mining revenues so not really feasible to carry out such an attack for a sustained period of time.
No, it is not a problem. The market decides where the hashpower is. It would be totally innatural that it should be dispersed equally over the globe. If the situation changes regarding regulation or economics, the market will see to it that the hashpower is quickly moved to another preferred place.
I don’t know if it’s a problem that we should be worrying about, but as a rule the more decentralized mining is the more secure bitcoin is. That pretty much applies to every level of mining (country, company, individual). I’m more worried about a single company, Bitmain, having a monopoly on mining hardware, and using shady practices to conceal the size of their mining pool.
YES, big YES.
I second this… They are the only company that makes home miners currently….
Imagine if they took a page from bitfury and decided only to make drop in datacenters…
Hash power concentration within the Rothschild-Central-Banking controlled area (Israel US UK EU Canada Australia NZ etc.) is probably a bigger threat to bitcoin than China.
Just start mining instead of whining.
What is the solution then? How do we prevent mining centralization? Inb4 defeatist attitudes/beliefs.
I don’t know. Perhaps mining should be “ASIC proof” somehow. I don’t think it is possible to change Bitcoin now but other crypto currencies are working on novel ideas.
Either way, I am not a computer scientist so I don’t really understand the technical hurdles that need to be overcome.
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