Comment on Paul Krugman. Former Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

• khannie@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  I can’t even fathom what the cost of trying to implement a 51% attack on bitcoin would be.

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  • Warl0k3@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Among the many feasible vectors you could accomplish that: Bitmain’s HQ is in Beijing, and while there is some scrutiny on the subject there has never been a (public) investigation into what’s actually baked into the silicon. Antminers are a fucking stunning percentage of the nodes out there, and although nothing like 51% of all nodes are just antminers, it still wouldn’t be difficult (for a powerful nation-state) to repeat the process across multiple manufacturers and get that kind of distributed influence.

    It’s completely possible that the classically imagined 51% attack has never occurred, but having that kind of large influence over the blockchain would trivially allow for subtle manipulations that would have world-spanning impacts. We have no way of demonstrating that it’s happened, nor preventing it if it does, which is a big part of why bitcoin is regarded as such a joke by everyone that isn’t part of the cult. And to be clear, I have no idea if this has happened - that’s the problem, there’s by design no way of checking or verifying integrity on that scale.

    Bitcoin was a half-baked idea that’s only stuck around because of the speculative market.

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    • deafboy@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago

      what’s actually baked into the silicon

      Bitmain has actually discovered and used a vulnerability in SHA256 hash function to their own benefit before. It took months, but people eventually found out.

      While the situation is concerning, it’s not like there are no eyes on what bitmain is doing. These days you can reflash the software on their machines, or eve use your own custom control boards if you wish. The guys from Braiins are doing some amazing work in this regard.

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      • Warl0k3@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago

        Yeah, there’s lots of hypothetical routes. I was really more considering how much of an impact it would have to give a few tens of millions to a few TSMC design engineers to include something on the compute dies. The specific issue with ASICs is that manipulations could be present below firmware, baked in at the physical silicon level, and with modern lithographic densities there’s essentially no mechanism for anyone to check to make sure that hasn’t happened.

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    • HumanOnEarth@lemmy.ca ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      I just bought another $100, thank you

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      • Warl0k3@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        Why would you think I care? The audience I’m writing for isn’t you, one of the above referenced “cultists” they were talking about screaming in the comments, it’s for anyone who isn’t already firmly entrenched within this strange little cult. Your poor financial decisions are your own burdens to bare, don’t try to offload the burden for your choices onto me…

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• HumanOnEarth@lemmy.ca ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

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  • Warl0k3@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    I do applaud you choosing not to make any more comically unfounded claims. The form leaves a little to be desired, but overall I’m glad to see improvement…

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