Mining Monday: 51% Attack, BitFury, and US National Agency
51% Attack, BitFury, and US National AgencyThis is what happened this week in the world of digital currency mining. (What is mining? Mining is the process in which a computer helps keep track of a digital currency’s transactions. As a reward for mining, miners are given coins)1. Bitcoin Miners Concerned That 51% of Miners Are Using Ghash. io to MineIt has been a concern that if someone was managing 51% or more of the computing power for Bitcoin, that entity could attempt to do double spends. What are double spends? Just like it sounds, a double spend is if someone was able to spend the same Bitcoins two or more times. Ghash. io, a very popular Bitcoin mining pool, had so many miners using it’s software that they neared the 51% mark. They responded to the communities concern stating that it was frustrating that they were being, in essence, punished for their success, and promised that they would never attempt to attack the Bitcoin service or do anything malicious. Ghash. io pointed out that if they did in fact attempt something malicious, it would be extremely obvious to the public and they would be shut down quite easily. 2. BitFury, a Large Bitcoin Mining Operation, Pulls 1PH/s of Mining Power from Ghash. io in Response to Potentiall of 51% AttackWith over $20 million in funding, BitFury is one of the largest mining operations in the world. With the Bitcoin community on edge due to the eminent possibility of a 51% attack because of Ghash. io, BitFury decided to remove a large amount of their mining power from Ghash. io and add it to another pool. BitFury plans to continue migrating large amounts of their mining hardware to other mining pools. 3. US National Agency Computers Misused to Mine BitcoinsIt has been reported that more than $8,000 worth of Bitcoins were mined illegaly on US NationalВ Agency computers. The researcher at the agency used more than $150,000 worth of hardware to mine Bitcoins, and when questioned said that he was simply conducting tests.
