BITMAIN REACHING FIFTY ONE PERCENT OF TOTAL BITCOIN NETWORK HASHRATE

Bitcoin Mining giant Bitmain has mined  42 percent of all Bitcoin blocks this past week, steady moving nearer to dominant a majority fifty one percent of th network hash rate.

BITMAIN MOVES NEARER TO 51%

ASIC manufacturer and cryptocurrency mining giant Bitmain — claimed 42 percent of the whole blocks found on the Bitcoin network from the past week. BTC.com and AntPool, that are both closely-held by Bitmain, presently comprise 26.6% and 15.3% of the network hash rate, severally.

Bitmain Technologies Ltd. — the beijing based Bitcoin mining company reported astonishing profits in 2017, taking in between $3 and $4 billion.

Bitmain has a huge leg up on its competitors by producing and using its own product in the mining method. It manufactures application-specific integrated circuits (ASIC) miners that are able to mine Bitcoin at a quicker rate than high-end graphics process units (GPU).

It also operates mining pools, where miners can join their efforts and ultimately slow down on their mining prices — as well as offering cloud mining services that enable miners to remotely lend mining power from its mining farms.

Bitmain also mines Bitcoin cash (BCH) with its ASIC miners — as BTC and BCH run on an equivalent algorithmic rule. If Bitmain were to halt mining BCH and instead used hundred percent of its resources for mining BTC, it could theoretically reach around 45% of the whole Bitcoin hash rate.

This is quite close to the majority 51% number. This would theoretically put Bitmain in position to perform a 51% attack on the Bitcoin network to censor transactions or perform double-spends.

The Sky Is Falling — But Probably Not

The number 51% makes many people within the cryptocurrency space quite nervous. It’s a number typically related to loss of decentralization and immutability. What would happen if Bitmain were to achieve 51 percent, and what are the potential ways of keeping Bitmain out of a singular majority position?

It wouldn’t be the first time in Bitcoin’s history that 51% was achieved by one company, however. In 2014 — mining company Ghash crossed the 51% mining pool threshold, inflicting a giant disputation within the community.

One answer that Ghash planned was to ask miners to move their resources into different mining pools, taking the bulk advantage away. It also urged any company in the same situation in the future do the same. it'd be a rather different situation, however, with Bitmain, as they're one giant mining corporation and Ghash was a collective of the many tiny miners.

Another unlikely answer would be to alter the Bitcoin Proof-of-Work (PoW) algorithm. This is quite unlikely thanks to the safety issues that might arise. an identical scenario happened after cryptocurrency Monero hard-forked into a symptom of work algorithm that left the community divided in regards to the true goals and vision for the project.

At the end of the day — it doesn't appear to be there's a lot of worry of Bitmain executing a 51% attack even if they cross the edge, as the incentive to not attack the network exists for the mining large. The greater worry would be the vulnerability to a hack from the outside or a rogue team member creating issues.

What are your thoughts on Bitmain being therefore near to 51 percent of the whole Bitcoin network hashrate? let us know your thoughts in the comments below!