This is what a “51% attack” would cost for bitcoin based on the total hashrate connected to the blockchain right now.
Cost of a 51% attack on the bitcoin network today
in a new mail In X, analyst James V. Straten has provided an estimate of the cost of a 51% attack on the btc blockchain. A “51% attack” in the context of bitcoin is when a single group takes control of more than 50% of the hashrate on the network and thus effectively takes over the blockchain as a whole.
The “hashrate” here refers to a measure of the total amount of computing power that miners have connected to the btc network at the moment. The metric is measured in terms of “Exahashes per second” (EH/s).
Here is a chart showing how the 7-day average bitcoin mining hashrate has changed over the past year:
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The 7-day average value of the metric seems to have been going up in recent weeks | Source: Blockchain.com
From the chart you can see that the bitcoin mining hashrate has seen an increase recently and has just set a new all-time high. The latest value of the metric is around 464 EH/s.
Please note that this is only the weekly average, as the actual hash rate can fluctuate greatly from day to day, as some miners may turn off their machines during periods of low electricity, while others turn them on. There are also miners expanding their facilities and new ones joining, while others may be leaving the network.
As mentioned above, a 51% hack would require one entity to gain control of more than half of the network’s hashrate. Assuming no current mining company would want to collude with such a malicious attacker, they would have to bring online a new hashrate slightly higher than the current total on the chain.
For the purposes of calculation, Straten has chosen the current hashrate as 470 EH/s (which is pretty close to the latest 7-day average). As the cheapest way to obtain the necessary power would be to rent it, the analyst has analyzed the cost of doing so.
Straten notes that based on recent data, the estimated hourly cost to rent around 0.1 EH/s of hashrate is 0.19652 btc (worth around $6,847.08 at the time the analyst made the call). publication).
Therefore, the hourly cost of renting bitcoin hashrate equal to the current network total (470 EH/s, as mentioned above) would be approximately 38,485 btc ($1,340,886.50).
“This estimate assumes the availability of sufficient hash power to rent and represents the cost of an uninterrupted attack lasting one hour,” explains Straten. “It is a theoretical figure, reflecting the expense of renting hash power at current market rates.”
btc Price
bitcoin had made a push towards the $36,000 level a couple of days ago, but over the past day, the coin has seen a notable drop as it has now retreated to the $34,300 mark.
<img decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium aligncenter" src="https://www.tradingview.com/x/aGolccm6/" alt="bitcoin price chart” width=”1534″ height=”869″/>
Looks like the value of the asset has been mostly moving sideways in the last few days | Source: BTCUSD on TradingView
Featured image by Dmytro Demidko on Unsplash.com, TradingView.com charts, Blockchain.com
