Comment by 1e-9 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by 1e-9 | Hacker News Reader

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> As trust is spread across the network to an increasing number of people running nodes, the trust assigned to any individual participant approaches zero.

If only we knew this was true.

An increase in the number of people running nodes does not guarantee that the maximum trust assigned to any individual participant approaches zero. What is the size of the largest Bitcoin whale? What is the size of the largest Bitcoin cartel? How do you know that the share of the largest Bitcoin whale or cartel isn’t increasing? What prevents China from deciding to eliminate the Bitcoin threat to its control by taking over the Chinese miners and launching a 51% attack?

Even if you are willing to believe that trust is well distributed across many independent entities, you still need to have greater trust in your own security and IT skills. When your wallet is hacked or you lose your credentials, there’s no number to call to recover your Bitcoin.

Bitcoin still requires significant trust, which is often overlooked.

> What prevents China from deciding to eliminate the Bitcoin threat to its control by taking over the Chinese miners and launching a 51% attack?

China isn’t stupid.

If they 51% attacked Bitcoin (completely contrary to their self interest), everyone would switch to a different hash algorithm and now China has burned tens of billions of capital, hurt their reputation, and achieved nothing.

You trust China to not attack Bitcoin because you consider it against their self interest.

China just launched its own digital currency.[1]

“In order to protect our currency sovereignty and legal currency status, we have to plan ahead,” said Mu Changchun, who is shepherding the project at the People’s Bank of China.

China isn’t the only major power that needs to monitor transactions and maintain control of its money supply. There are plenty of capable parties that could launch a 51% attack and they’re unlikely to take responsibility for it afterwards, so reputation is hardly a factor. The fact that another hash algorithm could be used later doesn’t matter. A government doesn’t stop defending its interests just because threats change.

Certainly, there may never be a 51% attack, but it will not be surprising if it happens.

[1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-creates-its-own-digital-c...

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