Andreas Antonopoulos Says States Can't Stop Bitcoin
Why Bitcoin Stack Exchange recommends it
Bitcoin Stack Exchange answerers point people to it when explaining why a state or government attack on Bitcoin, such as gaining 51% of hash power, is impractical.
Recommended by 2 people across 3 different months, 2019 to 2022.
What it is
A 2m45s clip from the March 2014 Texas Bitcoin Conference in which Andreas Antonopoulos is asked whether he worries about a nation state spending billions to destroy Bitcoin. He gives a short, humorous answer on why that is unlikely to work. It was uploaded by Neema Vedadi of the Freedom Feens radio show.
What people said
Recommends Saxtheowl · 2019-09 · Bitcoin Stack Exchange · on “Robustness of bitcoin”
It is highly unlikely mostly because, such an attack have to be maintained we are talking in the range of dozen of billions of dollar of equipment, electricity cost... and this cost will keep growing, and there will be no value for the attacker because nobody will want to use such a "cheating chain" Here what will mostly happen: The Bitcoin price might crash Exchanges might blacklist the stolen funds The community might change POW and make all mining rigs worthless It’s hard to keep warehouses full of mining rigs of that scale a secret, there’s a big risk to get caught Here is a video that explain it better than me: [this video]
Recommends Saxtheowl · 2019-10 · Bitcoin Stack Exchange · on “Don't miners control who is allowed to make transactions?”
What you are describing is a majority attack which a miner own more than 51% of the hashing power, it has happened once in 2014 but the miner then decided to lower its power to allow the bitcoin to work as intended, you should also notice that the things a miner owning this power can do is limited, see this answer: [LINK] Now if someone or a government try to do a 51% attack, it will cost a huge amount of resources even for a country like China to being able to own more than 51% of the hashing power, and once they have that they will likely make the trust in the network to zero and the price with it too, rendering the operation quite costly for almost no benefit, whereas they could use that
Recommends Matthew Cruz · 2019-12 · Bitcoin Stack Exchange · on “What are some potential scenarios that a state actor can harm bitcoin if they control more than 51% of the hashing power?”
There may be a lot of miners in China, but the People's Republic of China do not control the mining power. A 51% attack on Bitcoin may be theoretically possible, but it is definitely not feasible. Andreas Antonopoulos addressed this question and answers it better than I could. Here's a video of this Q&A: [this video]
Cites oblio · 2022-01 · Bitcoin Stack Exchange · on “Why wouldn't a state level actor be able to centralize Bitcoin?”
I was reading this question: What can an attacker with 51% of hash power do? [LINK] According to that, the 3 "powers" obtained through controlling 51% or more would be: Reverse transactions that he sends while he's in control Prevent some or all transactions from gaining any confirmations Prevent some or all other generators from getting any generations These look a lot to me like centralized currency, minus the creation part, which can probably be worked around through non-blockchain means, anyway. I think that a state level actor could definitely achieve this, but in this question: What are some potential scenarios that a state actor can harm bitcoin if they control more than 51% of the ha