Hash power to secure the bitcoin network is down 16% overnight, and has fallen nearly 45% since January.

This means that beating the Bitcoin blockchain could now require just $10 million in hash power, a paltry amount of money for a network with a total market value of $113 billion.

Such an attack is now $11 million cheaper than it was in January.

Hash power is the computational power of miners, which are used to secure the bitcoin network. Anyone can launch a 51% attack for a day worth $10 million, according to data from Massari Pro.

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This attack can lead to a reversal of recent transactions and also weakens control.

Messi extrapolates a 51% attack cost based on the cost of renting that much hashing power in NiceHash, a marketplace for buying and selling computing power for cryptocurrency mining.

Johnson Xu, a mining analyst at TokenInsight, a digital currency rating and research agency, said the low difficulty event was due to the recent downturn in the market, when the crypto market crashed along with global markets amid the panic caused by the coronavirus pandemic. .

Shaw told that this is made worse by the upcoming Bitcoin halving, as the supply of Bitcoin issued as mining rewards will be halved.

Shaw said:

The recent slowdown in the market has led to some miners withdrawing or at least temporarily shutting down their equipment, as it has not been profitable to continue operating older and less powerful Bitcoin miners.

Bitcoin is still safe so far:

According to Shaw:

Although it is now cheaper to attack the Bitcoin network, there is no reason to worry.

First, this is a theoretical cost.

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Only 0.3% of all hash power is available for rent on NiceHash, so it’s not as easy as simply paying the money, the attacker will need to acquire some miners.

Shaw adds:

Second: NiceHash prices change over time, so the numbers are subject to the whims of the crypto market.

When the Bitcoin network adjusts itself and the market stabilizes, we’ll see theoretical costs stabilize or increase again.

Most importantly, it is virtually impossible to perform a 51% attack on the Bitcoin network, as the attacker cannot demand sufficient hashing power to do so.

That’s because no one would sell enough hash power to anyone to launch a 51% attack.

Xu said bitcoin mining rigs are constantly being sold, and most of the hash power in the market is already being used by other miners.

No one would be willing to give up that much hashing power just for a 51% attack, Xu added, because doing so would likely cause the market to crash, which would provide no benefit to miners.

Although 54% of the hash power is controlled by Chinese miners alone, according to to report December 2019 released by “CoinShares”.

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Explaining, Shaw said:

It is impractical to coordinate miners.

In any case, mining pool operators, who rent out hash power, have no control over hash power.

The need for a bigger attack:

According to Eric Wahl, CIO at Arcane Assets, it would be completely wrong to take too much meaning out of Messari’s stats.

As Eric stated:

You need ASICs worth billions to do this.

That’s because ASICs have a future value, which is how much money they can generate.

This is why mining companies like Bitmain are worth billions.

However, since the hash rate has fallen by about half, does this mean that there is enough mining equipment on the market to carry out such an attack.

Wall said that although many miners have shut down several of their machines in the past few months, they are unlikely to sell them immediately.

He added:

If the difficulty decreases a bit, it may become profitable again, and the old hardware will be turned on again.

It would be difficult to buy too many miners at once, as it would be obvious that your intentions would be to disrupt the network.

Wahl explained that it would not work as follows:

Miners talk to each other and soon find out what’s going on, they may decide not to sell because they know what’s going to happen.

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