Top all-time · #6384
Braiins Blog
Company blog · braiins.com/blogeconomicssecurityprogramming
Braiins Blog is the company blog at braiins.com, writing about economics, security and programming. Since 2021, 13 different Hacker News readers have linked it 17 times, most often “How Much Would It Cost to 51% Attack Bitcoin?”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-20, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (11) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Braiins Blog for analysis of Bitcoin mining economics, including 51% attack costs, empty block mining, Stratum v2 and running mining hardware as home heating.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 11 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Mine more bitcoin with Braiins tools: mining pool, management system, firmware, hardware, education & more.
Most-linked posts?
- How Much Would It Cost to 51% Attack Bitcoin?5 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2021-02-25
What Hacker News says?
A lot of the energy consumption argument against bitcoin stems from this study [1]. Some have pointed out flaws in the study that over inflate the consumption numbers. This has sparked various indexes that have tried to measure the consumption in an unbiased way [2]. Additional studies [3] have shown that 39% of bitcoin miners are using renewables. The energy consumption argument has led some to investigate the ener…
Comment linking /blog/green-innovation-in-bitcoin-mining-recycling-asic-heat
on “China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’”Submitted On the Merits of Proof of Work as a story · 3 points
HN discussionMining is more decentralized now than it was when Chinese pools had 60% of the hashrate. We're also rolling the Stratum v2 protocol, which will considerably improve the decentralization. https://braiins.com/blog/stratum-v2-bitcoin-decentralization
Comment linking /blog/stratum-v2-bitcoin-decentralization
on “Let crypto burn”Submitted How Much Would It Cost to 51% Attack Bitcoin? as a story · 3 points
HN discussionOk, so I will answer my self. I found this link with the estimated costs for several cryptocurrencies: https://braiins.com/blog/how-much-would-it-cost-to-51-attack... It is given in dollars per hour. Compared to the cost of flying a F-35, a 51% attack would be like flying 20 F35s at the same time. Nothing too expensive for the military budget. It is just a squadron. EDIT: The updated cost is here: https://www.crypto…
Comment linking /blog/how-much-would-it-cost-to-51-attack-bitcoin
on “BTC Hashrate dropped another 27% down ~62% form peak now at 2019 levels”Submitted Building Bitcoin in Rust as a story · 2 points
HN discussionIt would be difficult to make it illegal in all jurisdictions in the world, so a 51% attack by a fed up nation state or states working together could shut it down. I am not an expert by any means, but it seems within the realm of possibily. With a per-unit consumption of 3250 W, that would put the electricity capacity needed to power all those ASICs at ~4.4 GW of power. That limits the possible candidates to pull of…
Comment linking /blog/how-much-would-it-cost-to-51-attack-bitcoin
on “Bitcoin's electricity use 8 times higher than Google's and Facebook's combined”Submitted A Summary of Bitcoin’s Energy Consumption Debate as a story · 2 points
HN discussionThat's like saying the $ or any other currency is entirely replaceable. What bitcoin has over any other cryptocurrency is the massive mining power behind it, making it the most secure. https://braiins.com/blog/how-much-would-it-cost-to-51-attack... So if you create another cryptocurrency which could use the same ASICS as bitcoin and you convince a lot of miners to switch then maybe.. it could be replaced but that is…
Comment linking /blog/how-much-would-it-cost-to-51-attack-bitcoin
on “Bitcoin could become ‘worthless’, Bank of England warns”Submitted Developer Grant for Stratum V2 Development in Rust (2020) as a story · 1 points
HN discussionEasier to read format: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1470792736626331659.html This quote from the thread is not accurate: > "I own #Bitcoin because it's the one thing they can't manipulate or control." Manipulating Bitcoin is certainly possible, even by non-state actors, e.g., How Much Would it Cost to 51% Attack Bitcoin? https://braiins.com/blog/how-much-would-it-cost-to-51-attack... PoW 51% Attack Cost https:…
Comment linking /blog/how-much-would-it-cost-to-51-attack-bitcoin
on “Why does the stock market look like this while the world is falling apart?”Submitted Taproot Privacy as a story · 1 points
HN discussionOthers have explored this space also: https://braiins.com/blog/guide-home-hvac-heating-bitcoin-min... https://www.coindesk.com/business/2023/01/03/heatbit-space-h... https://hackaday.com/2023/05/13/home-heating-with-bitcoin-mi... Some of the issues are: the noise from the fans, you have to move the heat out of the miner. Miners are computers, they fail in more ways and more often than a space heater does. If you are…
Comment linking /blog/guide-home-hvac-heating-bitcoin-mining
on “Ask HN: Why aren't all heaters computers?”Empty block mining has gone down significantly over time. 2018 https://www.theblockcrypto.com/linked/1964/close-to-19-of-mi... 2020 https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/67928/bitcoin-miners-are... and stratum v2 gets rid of it entirely... https://braiins.com/blog/why-pools-mine-empty-blocks-and-how... "mining pools will be able to dig deeper into the mempool (for transactions that are unlikely to be included in the c…
Comment linking /blog/why-pools-mine-empty-blocks-and-how-stratum-v2-fixes-this
on “Blockchain Is Puny”In my attempts to learn more about crypto, I've been reading about 51% attacks and thinking that a nation state or states working together could destroy Bitcoin if they wanted to. This Kazakh situation is another piece of the puzzle: Nation states could turn off the biggest miners before launching the 51% attack With a per-unit consumption of 3250 W, that would put the electricity capacity needed to power all those…
Comment linking /blog/how-much-would-it-cost-to-51-attack-bitcoin
on “Bitcoin network hash rate down 13.4% due to Kazakh protests”The connection is that miners seek the cheapest energy out there, which is renewables. Renewables (solar, wind) are highly variable in their output so to get stability you need to deploy A LOT of it (or couple it with for exmaple nuclear, hydro or fossil fuels). Bitcoin can act as a "buyer of last resort" for the producer, thus letting electricity producers build out larger deployments at a lower risk. Bitcoin minin…
Comment linking /blog/bitcoin-mining-the-grid-generators
on “A Eulogy for Bitcoin”> that's actually not correct. apples and oranges. we're talking about mining rigs - not websites and apps maintained by sysadmins who can apply a simple fix or waf during an upstream overage attack. Bitcoin mining rigs don't even use bitcoin p2p protocol themselves, they typically use stratum protocol( https://braiins.com/stratum-v1/docs ) and don't accept incoming connections from the public internet generally. Th…
Comment linking /stratum-v1/docs
on “Bitcoin Exploit”
