51% Attacks for Rent : The Trouble with a Liquid Mining Market

Otherwise, arbitrageurs may find it financially attractive to rent hashing power in order to perform 51% attacks.

Illiquid mining market - Most of the global hash power is illiquid and not rentable.

Any attack must outweigh the risk of failure including loss of mining rewards, loss of reputation and damage to the network.

Long-term miners do not want to destroy their future earning potential by successfully attacking a network, shaking market confidence, and causing the price to fall.

The total percentage of hashing power for rent will increase because buyers and sellers both benefit from the ability to rent and lend respectively.

Crypto51 calculates how much it would cost to rent enough hashing power to match the given network hashing power for an hour.

ETP is the #91 ranked coin on CMC. You can rent up to 21x the network's hashing power.

So what if 51% attacks are possible? How do attackers make money?

Rent NiceHash hashing power and silently grow the stealth chain.

"Rent-a-miner attacks seem like another amusing example of when the emergence of a market can break a system. Satoshi foresaw people trying to mount a 51% attack by buying a ton of machines, and so he went to great lengths to ensure this was unlikely using mining. I don't think Satoshi foresaw the liquid AWS-like market for instant hashing power. The ability to mount a limited-time 51% attack makes the attack literally 1000x easier than a buy-machine 51% attack."