[ExI] Sell your Bitcoins!

[John Clark]

On Wed, May 20, 2026 at 9:37 AM Jason Resch via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:



> *> It's already fallen over 93% to 3.125 bitcoins per block, from it's
> initial 50. That has accordingly made Bitcoin use 93% less electricity than
> miners would otherwise be spending on it.*
>

*Your logic is correct but your conclusion is incorrect because
you're starting with a faulty premise. The dollar value of the block reward
is what matters to miners, NOT the bitcoin quantity. In 2012 the block
reward was 50 bitcoins which were in total worth about $650, by 2016  25
bitcoins were worth about $16,000, and today just 3.125 bitcoins are worth
well over a quarter of a million dollars.  That's why in the early days
bitcoin could be mined on an ordinary laptop using a trivial amount of
electricity, but today bitcoin miners must use more electricity than many
medium-size countries. *


*>>  the cost of a 51% attack is proportional to the hash rate and that
>> is proportional to how profitable mining is. So as block subsidies decline
>> mining becomes less profitable and that causes the hash rate to drop and
>> that causes the cost of a 51% attack to become economically viable and that
>> causes one individual to be able to engage in double spending and that
>> causes the complete destruction of any trust the general public had in
>> bitcoin. *
>>
>
> *> A 51% attack isn't very profitable. It allows one person to temporarily
> double spend their own bitcoins that they already have, and that is for
> someone who only waits 10 minutes to confirm a transaction, for every
> additional 10 minutes they wait it becomes twice as difficult to perform
> that attack.*
>

*10 minutes is a long time, more than enough time to do something that
would be VERY profitable. A 51% attacker would have at least 10 minutes to
deposit $500 million in bitcoins to an exchange, use that to buy $500
million in gold, and then reverse the transaction, so he would end up with
$500 million in gold AND still retain ALL the original $500 million of
bitcoins. And that would just be the sideshow, the attacker could also
short bitcoin just before the attack and make more money from the ensuing
bitcoin price collapse than from the double spending. *

*And in the real world he would almost certainly have longer than 10
minutes because for large transactions most exchanges require at least
three confirmations which would mean about 30 minutes. Satoshi's original
whitepaper recommended 6 confirmations, but paradoxically more
confirmations help the attacker because it gives him more time. *


*> It is true that rhodium is rarer and more expensive than gold per ounce,
> but that's irrelevant to my point. Consider that currently gold is more
> valuable than platinum (which is significantly rarer). Can you explain why
> that is?*
>

*Easy. Compared to gold the supply of platinum is greater than the demand
for platinum, and the supply of rhodium is less than the demand
for rhodium.*

*John K Clark*


>
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