Much has been said about the strengths of the Bitcoin Network but generally speaking, we bitcoiners, tend to focus more on the positives while ignoring the possible flaws in the system.

While this is great for improving morale and increasing adoption it creates blind spots that could become fatal in the future.

One of the concerns about the security of the protocol is the 51% attack — the possibility that more than half of the miners collude to launch an attack on the network.

This is certainly a possibility considering for example that most miners are based in the US and whether forced by the government or on their own accord they could gather enough hash power to do a double spend attack, mine empty blocks, or simply bring down the network for some ulterior motive.

How feasible is this?

Let’s explore the probabilities.

Miners Collusion

Miners could get together, launch a 51% attack, and steal some money while pretending to be honest players trying to protect the network.

But this would be pointless.

Miners could get together, launch a 51% attack, and steal some money while pretending to be honest players trying to protect the network.

But this would be pointless.

The amount of hash power and energy required to launch the attack will outstrip the benefits and miners will incur in huge losses and put themselves out of business overnight.

It is much easier to defend Bitcoin than to attack it and this is so by design. Satoshi predicted the possibility of dishonest players and put in place an asymmetric barrier that is prohibitively costly to overcome.

This would be the equivalent of banks attacking themselves to make money.

Not realistic.

Hackers

Since attacking the network to make a buck is pointless, what about some ill-intentioned players enjoying the challenge of destroying the system for the sake of it?

Hackers can get anywhere, they have entered banks’ servers, the FBI, and the CIA. It seems that nothing is out of reach for them.

However, all these systems have something in common: centralization.

When you know exactly where to attack the possibilities of finding a back door increase substantially. No centralized system is 100% safe and all of them have vulnerabilities that provide vector attacks.

Hence Bitcoin’s decentralization.

In a system with thousands of miners and nodes spread all over the world the possibility of a successful attack is almost zero.

Yet, it could be argued that the concentration of miners in North America reduces decentralization and thus allows for vulnerabilities.

But from a hacker’s point of view, the geographical location of the servers is irrelevant. For all they care Bitcoin is still a highly decentralized network with no attack vectors and therefore out of reach.

States

Since trying to bring down the network for money or intellectual fun is not feasible, what about the US attacking the network in order to defend the dollar?

This is possible.

However…

To launch a successful 51% attack, the government agencies will need to launch a fast, stealthy, and smooth operation which requires a level of coordination beyond most states.

To run a state-level attack means taking control of 51% of the hash rate physically simultaneously and without the rest of the network noticing to avoid a reaction.

This will involve sending civil servants to many different mining farms, kidnapping the operation, and forcing the miners to launch a coordinated attack to destroy the network.

Apart from the legal and moral implications of this operation in a so-called democracy, there is also a level of difficulty not easy to overcome.

Any small mistake during the planning or execution process will void the attack useless leaving yet another trail of failures in an already damaged reputation.

It is easy to entertain the illusion of the FBI and the CIA as super-effective, all-powerful entities that can fulfill any mission successfully but the reality is very different.

The pilots that launched the 9–11 attacks were granted visas that allowed them to plan and execute the attacks on American soil.

Nobody in the government could foresee the problem with 2008 subprime mortgages and the subsequent collapse of the economy.

We are still searching for mass destruction weapons in Iraq, 20 years later.

My point is the US government is very powerful but it is not very well coordinated, smooth or stealthy.

They can invade any country and destroy any pipeline but when it comes to attacking a decentralized system they are useless.

Nothing to see here.

The Defense

Bitcoin is an antifragile system, the more is attacked the stronger it becomes.

If such an attack was to be attempted, the rest of the network would have a chance to react and defend the system by creating a new fork.

This will leave the government mining empty blocks in a blockchain no one follows which will become orphan over time.

This has been attempted before during the block wars and the subsequent Bitcoin cash fork. Needless to say, it didn’t work.

Bitcoin is based on a consensus mechanism in which miners and nodes have a say and can freely choose which blockchain to follow in case of a split.

Nobody will put their money on a government-created fork and therefore the attack will be rendered harmless.

Besides, we must make a distinction between mining pools and miners. Mining pools are just aggregators of hash power that collect processing power from miners in order to mine new blocks. The fact that mining pools are located in America doesn’t mean miners are. In fact, miners form a much more decentralized network that is more geographically dispersed than the data suggest.

This alone will make a state attack unfeasible.

Apart from that, let’s keep in mind how much destroying or pushing away Bitcoin from the US would cost them in terms of innovation, financial technology, and revenue.

Killing the golden geese is never a good idea and China is already regretting the miners’ exodus. America has been clever to foresee the potential of the internet and thanks to it some of the most valuable companies in the world belong to them.

They couldn’t destroy the internet even if they wanted, but why on earth would they anyway?

Granted, the world is full of irrational actors but still.

Every so often a technological revolution appears and those who miss out regret it forever.

Just in case Bitcoin succeeds it makes sense to allocate some stake in it. Not doing so could prove to be very risky. The US knows this and will act accordingly.

If you can’t beat them, join them.

Conclusion

A 51% attack is theoretically possible but so is winning the lottery, being hit by lighting, or Putin becoming a monk.

It ain’t gonna happen.

Let’s move on from the fantasy world of possibilities and into the real world of probabilities.

There are many reasons to think that an attack on Bitcoin doesn’t really benefit anyone while at the same time the incentives lay on the opposite side.

Fiat money has many problems and none have to do with Bitcoin. If nothing is done, every single fiat currency will collapse eventually including the dollar leaving a trail of devastation and ruin.

They know this and they also know they can’t destroy Bitcoin so a feasible option would be to back fiat currency with a scarce asset that can’t be created out of thin air, manipulated, or censored.

Bitcoin is perhaps the only choice governments have to make the financial system whole again. Will they destroy that bridge?