“Arguably the most impactful part of a 51% attack is censoring transactions - preventing some payments from being confirmed - which is particularly pertinent in the case of Monero given its focus on privacy”
Monero’s source/destination and amount of each transaction are obfuscated so they couldn’t even censor transactions.
Re-org can’t happen even with 51% because everyone would see it was a fraudulent block.
This was such an obvious flaw of the blockchain I'm surprised that it hasn't happened before. The "proof" is in who has more of the data, and as the blockchain gets larger, the ability to handle that much data will mean that fewer and fewer people/organisations will be able to hold it.
Not only do you need the longest chain, but you also need proof of the oldest chain.
It actually has happened before, with the original Bitcoin.
Blockstream (funded by Bilderberg) forked BTC with SegWit and stole the BTC ticker with a hostile takeover before BTC became mainstream.
Henri de Castries, who chaired the Bilderberg Group beginning in 2012, also served as CEO of AXA around the time AXA Strategic Ventures co-led Blockstream's $55 million Series A in early 2016.
They got most exchanges, miners, and wallet providers to support Blockstream. Media and influential figures framed the SegWit hard fork as a "soft fork". Opposing voices that supported the original Bitcoin protocol (Bitcoin Cash and BSV) were marginalized and labeled as "altcoins" making their framing seem fringe.
The SegWit fork was an abomination that favors large financial institutions (scaling off-chain, enabling fee markets, custodial growth) instead of small sovereign node operators which the original Bitcoin protocol was designed for.
Since their hostile takeover succeeded, they control both the dev team and the majority of the miners, and can therefore make any change (censorship, taking away peoples BTC, etc) and no one can stop them.
One of the more interesting guests Tucker Carlson has had on was one of the original bitcoin guys who saw a very obvious astroturfing amongst bitcoin forums towards pushing it from a currency to an investment vehicle.
It's a very interesting hypothesis that this was the CIA's response to the threat of Bitcoin. Turning it from a rival currency to an investment.
There's a big difference between being able to persuade people to go along with a change in protocol and having total control over 51% of the miners so you can pick exactly which transactions get recorded.
Blockstream (and by proxy Bilderberg) has control of Blockstream's mining pool, they host colocation for a considerable portion of miners (which they could decide to seize and take control of if they needed to), and Blockstream's leadership has strategic private meetings with other large pool operators.
While it may not be as obvious as what Qubic is doing with their pool here, it does mean that not only can they pick exactly which transactions get recorded if they really wanted to, but they can also have their devs make any protocol change (even literally taking away someones BTC) and the only ones who could stop them are the majority of the miners, which they control either directly or indirectly.
For sure it could happen, but I don't think they're close to 51% yet. I'm also not sure how long anyone would be able to maintain 51% control through a mining pool because once it's noticed that bad blocks have been confirmed by this pool the value of the coin will plummet and miners may decide it's no longer profitable to mine or decide it's better to leave that pool than help it continue to hurt the price.
Bitcoin was only supposed to be a proof of concept that could inspire better coins with robust privacy and end user control over the blockchain. Bitcoin obviously wasn't designed for millions of transactions per minute with your average Joe always able to profitably mine it or even store the whole blockchain. It only gets worse with lightning. Monero got closer to the goal by adding privacy and a more pro-consumer proof of work algorithm, but the privacy could be more robust and the algorithm has long been unprofitable for ordinary users to mine with.
You really think the globohomo governments of the world would allow Monero -- the only truly private and anonymous crypto -- to remain that way?
Based on that estimate, the attack has already cost around $1 billion since it started.
Sure sounds like they have government-scale funding.
That’s wild. Anywhere you recommend to read more?
I don't think it's the only one or probably even the best. There's Secret, Pirate Chain, Zcash, probably a lot more including Monero clones.
These attacks on anonymity are all happening at once, what a coincidence!
COHENCIDENCE
This sounds like a nothingburger :
“Arguably the most impactful part of a 51% attack is censoring transactions - preventing some payments from being confirmed - which is particularly pertinent in the case of Monero given its focus on privacy”
Monero’s source/destination and amount of each transaction are obfuscated so they couldn’t even censor transactions.
Re-org can’t happen even with 51% because everyone would see it was a fraudulent block.
Re-org has already succeeded, less than half a month after the attack started.
The attack is estimated to have cost $1 billion so far ($75 per day).
This was such an obvious flaw of the blockchain I'm surprised that it hasn't happened before. The "proof" is in who has more of the data, and as the blockchain gets larger, the ability to handle that much data will mean that fewer and fewer people/organisations will be able to hold it. Not only do you need the longest chain, but you also need proof of the oldest chain.
It actually has happened before, with the original Bitcoin. Blockstream (funded by Bilderberg) forked BTC with SegWit and stole the BTC ticker with a hostile takeover before BTC became mainstream.
Henri de Castries, who chaired the Bilderberg Group beginning in 2012, also served as CEO of AXA around the time AXA Strategic Ventures co-led Blockstream's $55 million Series A in early 2016.
They got most exchanges, miners, and wallet providers to support Blockstream. Media and influential figures framed the SegWit hard fork as a "soft fork". Opposing voices that supported the original Bitcoin protocol (Bitcoin Cash and BSV) were marginalized and labeled as "altcoins" making their framing seem fringe.
The SegWit fork was an abomination that favors large financial institutions (scaling off-chain, enabling fee markets, custodial growth) instead of small sovereign node operators which the original Bitcoin protocol was designed for.
Since their hostile takeover succeeded, they control both the dev team and the majority of the miners, and can therefore make any change (censorship, taking away peoples BTC, etc) and no one can stop them.
One of the more interesting guests Tucker Carlson has had on was one of the original bitcoin guys who saw a very obvious astroturfing amongst bitcoin forums towards pushing it from a currency to an investment vehicle. It's a very interesting hypothesis that this was the CIA's response to the threat of Bitcoin. Turning it from a rival currency to an investment.
There's a big difference between being able to persuade people to go along with a change in protocol and having total control over 51% of the miners so you can pick exactly which transactions get recorded.
Blockstream (and by proxy Bilderberg) has control of Blockstream's mining pool, they host colocation for a considerable portion of miners (which they could decide to seize and take control of if they needed to), and Blockstream's leadership has strategic private meetings with other large pool operators.
While it may not be as obvious as what Qubic is doing with their pool here, it does mean that not only can they pick exactly which transactions get recorded if they really wanted to, but they can also have their devs make any protocol change (even literally taking away someones BTC) and the only ones who could stop them are the majority of the miners, which they control either directly or indirectly.
For sure it could happen, but I don't think they're close to 51% yet. I'm also not sure how long anyone would be able to maintain 51% control through a mining pool because once it's noticed that bad blocks have been confirmed by this pool the value of the coin will plummet and miners may decide it's no longer profitable to mine or decide it's better to leave that pool than help it continue to hurt the price.
Bitcoin was only supposed to be a proof of concept that could inspire better coins with robust privacy and end user control over the blockchain. Bitcoin obviously wasn't designed for millions of transactions per minute with your average Joe always able to profitably mine it or even store the whole blockchain. It only gets worse with lightning. Monero got closer to the goal by adding privacy and a more pro-consumer proof of work algorithm, but the privacy could be more robust and the algorithm has long been unprofitable for ordinary users to mine with.
Everybody don't forget about ZCash. It uses more advanced technology than Monero.