51% Attacks for Rent — The Consequence of a Liquid #mining Market
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51% Attacks for Rent — The Consequence of a Liquid Mining MarketIn order to remain decentralized, cryptocurrencies using a proof of work system must not allow a single party to control the majority of total hashing power.But as the global pool of hashing power grows more liquid, cryptocurrencies need to pass another important test. They must be able to resist an attack from the total rentable global hashing power for their specific algorithm. Otherwise, arbitrageurs may find it financially attractive to rent hashing power in order to perform 51% attacks.There are a few things preventing this from happening:Algorithm-specific miners — Many rigs are optimized for a certain hashing algorithm, and switching to another, e.g. SHA-256 → X11, is unfeasible.Illiquid mining market — Most of the global (...)