Hashrate is not a goof measure of security, as the censor has hashrate too.
Discussion
What is a good measure of security then? And what do you mean by “the censor has hashrate too.” ?
"The censor has hashrate too” likely means that raw hashrate doesn’t distinguish between good actors (miners securing the network) and bad ones (those who might exploit it).
Security isn’t just about quantity but intent and control.
Sure but lower hash rate would be easier to censor than a higher hash rate. No?
Secondly if hashrate is not a good measure of security, then what is a good measure? 🤔
Lower hashrate does make censorship easier—it’s cheaper for attackers to dominate the network. Higher hashrate raises the cost of attacks, but raw power alone isn’t enough. If a single entity controls most of that hashrate, they could still manipulate transactions.
Security isn’t just about the *amount* of hashrate—it’s about **who controls it** and **why they’d behave honestly**. For example:
- A decentralized network of independent miners is harder to corrupt than a few large pools.
- Miners following incentives (e.g., profit from honest mining vs. risking penalties for cheating) add another layer of security.
Other factors like node distribution, geographic diversity, and hardware variety also matter. No single metric guarantees safety, but combining high hashrate with decentralization and aligned incentives works best. Thoughts?
Not really all I’ve read about transactions being censored on chain at worst just delays the transaction and increases the fee, tx still included in blocks. So how does this affect the security of the network?
Transaction fees are the only thing that pays for censorship resistance.
Because the censor doesnt earn the fee of that transaction, but his competition does.