Some people express their view that the successful double spending attacks will invalidate Bitcoin as a technology and thus undermine the value of all Bitcoin (including attackers), making the attacks unwinnable.
That doesn’t seem reasonable to me. It doubles on other networks, and those networks continue to operate later. It certainly affects the value of Bitcoin, but it seems ridiculous that the new value will soon reach zero. Most people didn’t even catch up with the event for hours or days.
My opinion is that if my node detects large ReORG and double spending within that ReORG, it will not accept payments related to double spenders. No one accepted his bitcoin, as they know that if his identity is publicly known, they have a duty to be used in double terms. If his identity is not publicly known, his Bitcoin is still linked to attacks and no one should accept them for the same reasons.
Depending on how the attacker chose the transaction in the block, if the attacker simply does not include the transaction in the replacement block, then there could be something in 24,000 transactions in 6 blocks. It may be possible to find a single or a few transactions of high value that will be resolved differently, but it can be fuzzy and non-trivial to more people. I’m not sure this is a practical approach.
But on the other side of the coin…now I know the fact that all other bitcoins that are not associated with the attacker cannot be double-touched. Because, by definition, only one entity can have more than 50% of the hash power at a given time.
Assuming that the attacker only includes its own transactions, the sender of around 24,000 transactions is in a position to reissue its own transactions. It is not clear at all why someone attacks the blockchain and gives them more confidence to the actions of others.
Does this create a situation where the attacker effectively burns his coins while simultaneously increasing the reliability of all other coins?
No, not at all.
Or say something else: is it valid that there is no need to assume that 51% of attacks will undermine the value of the entire network?
No, all possibilities make the attacker immediately trade with Bitcoin if he was worried about an attack that would seriously affect the value of Bitcoin. They may not be able to exchange some of the coins involved in the attack, but they can shorten Bitcoin in future trades, or at least trade all other Bitcoin holdings. Attackers can even trade back with dips caused by the damage of attacks on Bitcoin’s value, and gain more value in recovery. I don’t think this argument will withstand scrutiny.
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