Hacker News Reader

I wonder if a country could produce bitcoin miners that convert electricity to heat and use that heat for their industry while also getting to control trillions in bitcoin once they cross 50% of mining capacity.

Most likely bitcoin would loose all value then as the value is basically product of trust in the bitcoin network, but still an interesting idea for a state-sponsored attack.

View on HN

>50% bitcoin mining capacity is already in China since like 2014 (unless something drastically changed).

The beauty of the PoW blockchain is that if a nation attains this kind of power, then still, the most profitable thing to do would be to keep playing by the rules. This is why bitcoin works.

That assertion doesn’t necessarily hold. There’s political advantage to be gained by taking and holding that advantage so that it can be tactically trashed when it needs to be. Your comment implies that China would increasingly lean further in to supporting cryptocurrencies, when we know that they’re not a fan of tolerating things that even look they might try to challenge their authority any longer than it is advantageous for them.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com