Crypto51

Finance and crypto

cryptocurrency security analysis

SHOW HN2018

581points
218comments
#23of 2,155 in 2018
Top 2%of 2018 by points

How HN took it

CuriousMostly questions and neutral comments

12 positive, 43 neutral or asking, 2 mixed, 29 critical, out of 86 comments about the project. Thread score -0.22.

Idea: 9 for, 18 againstExecution: 1 for, 9 againstPrivacy: 0 for, 1 againstDesign: 1 for, 0 againstPerformance: 0 for, 1 against

The thread, comment by comment

Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.

positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker

What HN said

What people liked

  • Useful and interesting data presentation

    From 3 comments
    • Looks great, nice work, keep it up! One small improvement in my opinion would be to make the columns sortable- especially the 1hr attack cost.
      fru2013 on HN
    • Very interesting data. Are you planning on making it available via an API?
      _31 on HN
    • Loaded into a live-updating Google Sheet for convenience: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18tqvZPXjnEVExlSaTcGu5kilasQ4N1i0ekx0zmSwSiI/edit?usp=sharing
      ttul on HN

Objections

  • Estimates ignore the cost of buying hardware and rising rental prices, so attacks on large coins are unrealistic

    From 2 comments
    • This is a totally misleading calculation for the largest currencies. It's literally quoting the spot price for what's available on NiceHash and then dividing by the fraction…
      HaseebQ on HN
    • Doing a 51% attack on a major coin, and actually profiting from it, is much more complicated than this chart implies. Here are some of the problems you'll run into: 1. NiceHash…
      Meekro on HN
  • Block rewards are excluded, so attack costs are overstated

    From 2 comments
    • It's important to note that this doesn't include block rewards, so these attacks are all actually less expensive than shown.
      pietroglyph on HN
    • It would be interesting to add the currency rewards the attackers would gain from the hashing process. I bet the cost may be greatly reduced, and may even make the operation…
      osrec on HN
  • Some coin entries are wrong, such as Peercoin and Komodo

    From 2 comments
    • This is incredible! What actually stops me from launching such an attack on something like Einsteinium? One problem I found w/ the website: you have included Peercoin, even…
      hoschicz on HN
    • One coin I've seen is wrong is Komodo. It uses DPoW which is a completely different type of security scheme https://wiki.komodoplatform.com/wiki/Delayed_Proof_of_Work_(dPoW) even…
      bazza451 on HN

Requests

  • Add a JSON API or endpoint

    From 2 comments
    • Very interesting data. Are you planning on making it available via an API?
      _31 on HN
    • Loaded into a live-updating Google Sheet for convenience: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18tqvZPXjnEVExlSaTcGu5kilasQ4N1i0ekx0zmSwSiI/edit?usp=sharing
      ttul on HN
  • Make table columns sortable

    From 1 comment
    • Looks great, nice work, keep it up! One small improvement in my opinion would be to make the columns sortable- especially the 1hr attack cost.
      fru2013 on HN
  • Add more coins such as Decred and Cardano

    From 2 comments
    • You should add Decred to the list. It would be nice for people to see the increased cost of a 51% attack for a hybrid PoW/PoS coin.
      lucasp on HN
    • I'm curious were Cardano ADA would be on this list. It seems to be one of the more thoughtful designs, and also a recent addition to the list of coins.
      cies on HN

Questions

  • Can NiceHash be used to run custom mining software for double spends

    From 1 comment
    • Does nicehash let you run custom mining software to make adjustments to how it handles your transactions (permit double spend) or change the algorithm (like the verge attack)?…
      nreilly on HN
  • Does attack cost rise linearly with time

    From 1 comment
    • Does the cost of a 51% attack rise linearly with time? Is this right? Cost of 24h attack == 24 * (Cost of 1h attack)
      andr3w321 on HN

Alternatives named

  • coinmarketattack.com

    From 1 comment
    • Wow nice works. I was working on the exact same project https://www.coinmarketattack.com/
      xer on HN
  • arewedecentralizedyet.com

    From 1 comment
    • Hey @xur17, I run arewedecentralizedyet.com - we should partner on adding this metric. Really great work!!
      ummjackson on HN

Category, keywords, summaries and labels on this page were made by AI (Thread Reader v2) and not checked by hand. Each point links to the comments it came from.

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