51% attack on Ethereum more difficult than on Bitcoin — Justin Drake

1 month ago

Ethereum Merge designer Justin Drake told Cointelegraph that helium believes it would beryllium cheaper to motorboat a 51% onslaught connected Bitcoin than connected Ethereum.

Drake said it would beryllium “much cheaper to 51% attack Bitcoin” and that it would outgo “on the bid of $10 billion.”

Drake led enactment connected Ethereum’s proof-of-stake (PoS) implementation and was a main designer successful the Merge (the afloat PoS modulation event). His remarks echo a May 14 X post by Grant Hummer, the co-founder of Ethereum-focused selling and merchandise institution Etherealize.

In the post, Hummer said that Bitcoin “is wholly screwed due to the fact that of its information budget.”

Hummer claimed it would outgo $8 cardinal to tally a palmy 51% attack, and helium expects a palmy onslaught to beryllium “virtually certain” erstwhile the outgo slips to $2 billion. A 51% onslaught occurs erstwhile a azygous entity oregon radical controls implicit 50% of a blockchain network’s mining oregon staking power, gaining powerfulness implicit the network. Hummer added:

“This volition go blindingly evident implicit the adjacent decade. ETH is the lone genuinely decentralized crypto-asset that tin go the internet's [store of value].“

Ethereum onslaught would outgo overmuch more

Drake explained that “to person 100% power of the chain, you request 50% + 1 of stake.” He said that it would beryllium highly hard and expensive, but acold from impossible:

“A affluent federation authorities tin astir apt propulsion it off.“

At the clip of writing, determination was 34,168,987 staked Ether (ETH) worthy astir $89.6 billion. Consequently, fractional of each ETH has a existent worth of astir $44.8 billion.

Still, a overmuch higher concern would apt beryllium needed. Ether has a existent marketplace headdress of $316 cardinal and a 24-hour trading measurement of $25 cardinal (just implicit 8% of the marketplace cap).

The ETH needed for an onslaught is worthy astir 14.2% of the marketplace headdress and 180% of the 24-hour trading volume. An undertaking of that size would apt origin a important ETH terms appreciation, further expanding the outgo of the attack.

Ethereum’s past enactment of defense

Matan Sitbon, the laminitis and CEO of blockchain interoperability developer Lightblocks, told Cointelegraph that Ethereum has an further diagnostic to support against specified attacks.

“Ethereum’s eventual information lies not solely successful cryptography oregon protocol rules, but successful the community’s almighty societal and economical coordination mechanisms,“ helium said.

Drake besides highlighted different vantage that helium believes Ethereum has implicit Bitcoin. He explained that “if determination is simply a 51% attack, the societal furniture tin place the attacker and socially slash it.”

“This is simply a superpower of PoS that is not disposable with PoW,“ helium added.

Drake’s connection refers to the societal layer, meaning the network’s quality supermajority, which decides which bundle to run. Bitcoin’s simpler proof-of-work (PoW) statement mechanics has a smaller onslaught aboveground and longer reliability way record, but it lacks this feature.

Pavel Yashin, Researcher astatine P2P.org, told Cointelegraph that “if the centralization is detected,” the assemblage could resoluteness it with a caller fork. The aged token would extremity up being delisted, and the compromised concatenation would autumn into irrelevancy.

Hassan Khan, CEO astatine Bitcoin liquidity protocol Ordeez, told Cointelegraph that “the statement astir the feasibility of a 51% onslaught remains open-ended — mostly due to the fact that portion theoretically possible, successful signifier the barriers are highly high.”

He said that for Bitcoin, the indispensable magnitude of computing powerfulness and vigor “makes a sustained onslaught highly improbable,” portion for Ethereum, “PoS introduces further economical and governance deterrents.”

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