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There’s been a lot of talk about the potential for the government to co-opt and/or seize miners to 51% attack the network or reorg the chain on an ongoing basis lately.

One thing that I think isn’t given enough thought in these discussions is the fact that coinbase rewards aren’t released to a miner until 100 blocks after the block they mined.

Can’t exactly put my finger on it, but I have an intuitive feeling that this is a crucial part of the game theory that many are missing.

Len AKA The Lengend⚡ 2y ago

GL to anyone wanting to do a 51% attack. Nodes have a great deal of power which cannot be overlooked.

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Discussion

captain ☦️ 2y ago

Nodes have zero hashing power. Only economic power to the extent that they are paying miners with fees. The vast majority of nodes are economically irrelevant. Centralization is a threat on both the mining side and the merchant side.

https://github.com/libbitcoin/libbitcoin-system/wiki/Balance-of-Power-Fallacy

Len AKA The Lengend⚡ 2y ago

The majority of people running nodes are aware of the economics of bitcoin and support miners who contribute to the greater network security. If miners start acting in a hostile manner, I fully expect nodes to pivot and discontinue verifying transactions from rogue miners. This would make the whole 51% exercise an expensive and fruitless endeavor.

Node runners have a great deal of power which should not be overlooked.

captain ☦️ 2y ago

Who's going to mine on the new chain?

Len AKA The Lengend⚡ 2y ago

The remaining 49% (or less) of the miners that proved themselves to be good actors

captain ☦️ 2y ago

Why don't you think the censoring miners would attack the new chain?

Len AKA The Lengend⚡ 2y ago

They would need to continually make adjustments to attack the new chains. All that time, money, energy (both from human and power generated) lost and the only thing they achieved was to be an annoyance.