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> Some form of 51% attack succeeds

Given the current state of the market, this seems implausible to succeed.

Total BTC in circulation: 18.6m Current BTC price: $31,697 51% of 18.6m: 9,486,000

to outright buy that would cost ~$300bn.

not accounting for lost coins, the fact that such a supply is inherently distributed throughout the market and such an attempt would almost certainly move the price much higher.

Zuckerberg and Bezos should pool their cash and take a stab at it, though.



51% attack does not correlate at all with owning 51% of the coins, it is about having 51% of the network hashrate. If you were to round up the current network hashrate from 145 million TH/s to 150 million TH/s, and use the Nicehash price of ~$219 per PH per hour as a price, it would cost around $15B to run a 51% attack for an hour. Obviously the price per PH would go up as you buy up that much hashpower (which wouldn't even be for sale), so this is a low end estimate, but your $300bn number is completely out of the park.




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