Author: Артём Литвинович 2018-06-18 18:34:37
Published on: 2018-06-18T18:34:37+00:00
Dilution is a potential attack that has been brought up in a Twitter argument, but there are no references or convincing arguments to suggest that it is implausible. The idea is that a malicious actor could acquire a majority of hash power and use it to produce valid, but empty blocks. This would effectively reduce the block rate by half or more, and since nodes can't differentiate between block relay and block production, there would be nothing they could do to adjust difficulty or blacklist the attacker. The cost of such an attack could be significant, at around $2 billion for equipment and $0.4 billion per month for power costs, assuming Antminer pricing and 12.5 BTC per 10 minutes power cost (ignoring block reward). While this cost may seem high, it is easily within the means of even a minor government-scale actor. It is unclear whether this scenario is plausible, but if it is, there needs to be mitigation strategies put in place. Overall, dilution is a potential vulnerability that needs to be considered and addressed in the ongoing development and implementation of blockchain technology.
Updated on: 2023-06-13T03:36:23.828291+00:00