Website Outlines The Cost of 51% Attack on Altcoins: It’s Lower Than You Think
发布时间：2018-05-30 17:22:53 发布人：TokenString
A website has been created that estimates the cost of a 51% attack on different cryptocurrencies, allowing attackers to maliciously double
spend, meaning to spend the same balance twice. The site developer who
goes by /u/xur17 on Reddit spoke to CCN about their motivation for
creating the site:
“There was an attack against Bitcoin Gold a few days ago,
which made me curious what the cost of an attack would be with rented
hashing power. I did the math and
was honestly kind of shocked – someone could attack a cryptocurrencies
worth close to a billion dollar for < $10k an hour and even less than
that if you include the block rewards.
This got me to calculate the same figures for other coins, and again
it was cheaper than I thought it should be. The goal of the site is to
drive more attention to what I see as a pretty glaring problem with
these smaller coins. Hashing power is easily retargetable, so not only
can people rent hashing power, the larger mining pools can redirect
hashing power at smaller coins for a few hours to attack them.”
The picture below is taken from the crypto51 website which was posted on the cryptocurrency subreddit of Reddit yesterday. While other websites have much higher estimates for the cost of a 51% attack, they did not factor in the possibility of renting the mining equipment instead of buying it.
Cost of 51% Attack
Cryptocurrency mining rigs are very expensive, and the hardware
required to execute an attack on even a small coin with few mining nodes
to compete with would be astronomical, requiring server farms full of
top-tier rigs and the electricity required on top of that. The hardware required to attack the Bitcoin network would cost over $1 billion,
and hourly electricity costs over $500,000. However, it’s also possible
to simply rent the hashing power from the NiceHash service which
already has the hardware required to bring many different altcoins to
their knees, according to xur17 of Crypto51.app.
The far right column which indicates that NiceHash only has 2% of the
hardware required to attempt an attack on the Bitcoin network shows
that the service could successfully be used to attack smaller networks
like Bitcoin Gold, Bitcoin Private, MonaCoin, Bytecoin, and many others.
In fact, both Verge and Bitcoin Gold suffered a successful 51% attack just a week ago,
with Bitcoin Gold losing $18 million to double spending. The attack
made headlines, and it was assumed by many that a huge operation was
behind the crypto-heist. However, it appears that NiceHash could be used
to commandeer the BTG hash rate for under $4,000. The Crypto51.app site
claims that NiceHash could be used to take over the hash rate of the
Bytecoin networkworth over $1 billion for an entire hour for under $600,
with other coins vulnerable to multi-million dollar attacks for equally
minuscule costs.
Charlie Lee of Litecoin is among the many people taking the numbers on the website seriously:
https://t.co/HYejqons0V shows how easy it is to 51% attack some of the smaller PoW coins. For
some coins, 100% of the hashrate can be rented from NiceHash, which
removes the capital costs of the attack!
For example, Bytecoin (marketcap ~$1B) can be 51% attacked for $557!
A website has been created that estimates the cost of a 51% attack on different cryptocurrencies, allowing attackers to maliciously double spend, meaning to spend the same balance twice. The site developer who goes by /u/xur17 on Reddit spoke to CCN about their motivation for creating the site:
“There was an attack against Bitcoin Gold a few days ago, which made me curious what the cost of an attack would be with rented hashing power. I did the math and was honestly kind of shocked – someone could attack a cryptocurrencies worth close to a billion dollar for < $10k an hour and even less than that if you include the block rewards.
This got me to calculate the same figures for other coins, and again it was cheaper than I thought it should be. The goal of the site is to drive more attention to what I see as a pretty glaring problem with these smaller coins. Hashing power is easily retargetable, so not only can people rent hashing power, the larger mining pools can redirect hashing power at smaller coins for a few hours to attack them.”
The picture below is taken from the crypto51 website which was posted on the cryptocurrency subreddit of Reddit yesterday. While other websites have much higher estimates for the cost of a 51% attack, they did not factor in the possibility of renting the mining equipment instead of buying it.
Cost of 51% Attack
Cryptocurrency mining rigs are very expensive, and the hardware required to execute an attack on even a small coin with few mining nodes to compete with would be astronomical, requiring server farms full of top-tier rigs and the electricity required on top of that. The hardware required to attack the Bitcoin network would cost over $1 billion, and hourly electricity costs over $500,000. However, it’s also possible to simply rent the hashing power from the NiceHash service which already has the hardware required to bring many different altcoins to their knees, according to xur17 of Crypto51.app.
The far right column which indicates that NiceHash only has 2% of the hardware required to attempt an attack on the Bitcoin network shows that the service could successfully be used to attack smaller networks like Bitcoin Gold, Bitcoin Private, MonaCoin, Bytecoin, and many others.
In fact, both Verge and Bitcoin Gold suffered a successful 51% attack just a week ago, with Bitcoin Gold losing $18 million to double spending. The attack made headlines, and it was assumed by many that a huge operation was behind the crypto-heist. However, it appears that NiceHash could be used to commandeer the BTG hash rate for under $4,000. The Crypto51.app site claims that NiceHash could be used to take over the hash rate of the Bytecoin networkworth over $1 billion for an entire hour for under $600, with other coins vulnerable to multi-million dollar attacks for equally minuscule costs.
Charlie Lee of Litecoin is among the many people taking the numbers on the website seriously:
https://t.co/HYejqons0V shows how easy it is to 51% attack some of the smaller PoW coins. For some coins, 100% of the hashrate can be rented from NiceHash, which removes the capital costs of the attack!
For example, Bytecoin (marketcap ~$1B) can be 51% attacked for $557!
