{"id":1318,"date":"2019-05-09T13:51:12","date_gmt":"2019-05-09T13:51:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blockchain-society.science\/?p=1318"},"modified":"2019-05-09T13:51:12","modified_gmt":"2019-05-09T13:51:12","slug":"what-a-bitcoin-reorg-is-and-what-binance-has-to-do-with-it-coindesk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blockchain-society.science\/?p=1318","title":{"rendered":"What a Bitcoin ‘Reorg’ Is and What Binance Has to Do With It – CoinDesk"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>\u201cIf you bribe 51 percent of the miners, they will change the ledger for you. [This] tells you just how little irreversibility there is in PoW coins,\u201d tweeted Cornell University professor and researcher in blockchain consensus protocols Emin G\u00fcn Sirer.A 51% attack on the blockchain network is not a new attack vector for PoW blockchains. However, as highlighted by G\u00fcn Sirer, it\u2019s also not really an attack vector. On very special instances, the majority of self-interested miners on PoW blockchains have voluntarily agreed to alter a transaction history to undo critical situations.While the situation isn\u2019t entirely the same, in the past, blockchain networks have seen their histories altered in the wake of critical moments. This happened on the ethereum blockchain back in 2016 when over $60 million worth of coins were siphoned off from the now-defunct smart contract The DAO. It also happened on the vericoin blockchain back in 2014 after $8 million worth of coins were hacked.While controversial, both decisions were supported by the primary developer community who launched system-wide upgrades or hard forks to enable otherwise infeasible amendments to the blockchain transaction history.Yet those choices weren\u2019t without their repercussions; the resulting ethereum fork resulted in two distinct chains, ethereum and ethereum classic, respectively.A resounding noStill, many in the bitcoin community took to social media to deride the idea as both infeasible as well against the philosophical underpinnings of the technology.In Binance\u2019s particular case, prominent members of the bitcoin community point out that bitcoin being the world\u2019s largest blockchain is a particularly unique case with a reputation to uphold.\u201cTalk of forking or reorganizing the blockchain is close to heresy,\u201d tweeted billionaire bitcoin investor Michael Novogratz. \u201cWhen the ethereum community did it the project was like 5 months old. A baby. Bitcoin now has $100bn market cap and is a legitimate store of wealth.\u201dIt would also be unfair according to Adam Back \u2013 CEO of bitcoin development startup Blockstream \u2013 given that the latest Binance hack is nowhere near as severe as previous hacks suffered on the bitcoin blockchain.\u201cA Bitcoin reorg is just not happening, and I doubt any Bitcoin industry, miners nor developers considered it either. Recall 2014 $473mil, 2016 bitfinex hack $72mil, 2019 binance $40mil etc. #NotHappening,\u201d tweeted Back.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Source: What a Bitcoin ‘Reorg’ Is and What Binance Has to Do With It – CoinDesk<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cIf you bribe 51 percent of the miners, they will change the ledger for you. [This] tells you just how little irreversibility there is in PoW coins,\u201d tweeted Cornell University professor and researcher in blockchain consensus protocols Emin G\u00fcn Sirer.A 51% attack on the blockchain network is not a new attack vector for PoW blockchains. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,39,27,43,31,5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blockchain-society.science\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1318"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blockchain-society.science\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blockchain-society.science\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blockchain-society.science\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blockchain-society.science\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1318"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blockchain-society.science\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1318\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1320,"href":"https:\/\/blockchain-society.science\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1318\/revisions\/1320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blockchain-society.science\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blockchain-society.science\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blockchain-society.science\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}