Author: Caleb James DeLisle 2013-05-15 12:40:59
Published on: 2013-05-15T12:40:59+00:00
In a discussion on Bitcoin-development mailing list, Peter Todd expressed concerns about the vulnerability of Bitcoin protocol to 51% attacks. Adam Back argued that protocol voting is a vote per user policy preference and not a CPU vote, which would make it difficult for miners to impose arbitrary policies. He suggested that the blind commitment proposal could fix this issue by making it hard even for a 99% quorum to impose policies. However, he admitted that the feasibility of protocol voting attacks is an open question and hinted at the seeming unstoppability of p2p protocols. The conversation also touched on the issue of reversibility. Todd raised concerns about the lack of chargebacks in Bitcoin, which could create issues as criminals learn to use it for effective kidnap and ransom cases. He predicted that after the first $10mn kidnapping-for-bitcoin heist, governments will be forced to decide how they view the system, which could lead to them arresting/questioning anyone identified holding tainted coins or blocking Bitcoin altogether as Iran does TOR.
Updated on: 2023-06-06T16:58:17.399587+00:00