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EB68 – Kamikaze Attack, Block Halving And The Perils Of Proof-Of-Work

732 views · Published 2 March 2015 · 1:07:53 · Indexed 8 November 2026

Channel: Epicenter Podcast · 2015 · Science & Technology

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Is Bitcoin secure from attacks that could destroy the currency? To a large part, this is determined by how expensive it is to carry out an attack and by the potential profits the attacker could generate. Ideally, an attack is so expensive to carry out that no profit-driven attacker would engage in it.

But in this episode, Brian argues that the cost of attacking Bitcoin will likely decrease in the future and the ability to short Bitcoin and thus benefit from an attack will increase dramatically. We take an in-depth look at the anatomy of such an attack including:
- How an attacker would need to go about shorting bitcoin
- How the kamikaze mining pool could be used to bribe miners to join the attacker
- Why all profit-driven miners will have an incentive to join the attack, whether or not they believe it will succeed
- Why the block halving in 2016 could be an exceptionally dangerous time for Bitcoin, since an attack would be cheap to execute and likely to succeed
- How a gradual decrease of the block reward, instead of the 4-year halving rhythm would reduce risk

Links mentioned in this episode: 

- Bitcoin Development Mailing List Thread - Death by halving: http://bit.ly/1Ch3Qdx

Sponsors: 

- ShapeShift: http://shapeshift.io

Show notes: http://epicenterbitcoin.com/podcast/068
SoundCloud: http://soundcloud.com/epicenterbitcoin/eb-068


Epicenter Bitcoin is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain & Sébastien Couture.
 
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