That metric helps estimate the amount of work that has made Bitcoin a robust, secure and practically unchangeable network. Creating a seemingly-valid blockchain is impractical, and the nodes would have to ignore that it is not real.
A person who wants to rewrite the transaction history on the Bitcoin blockchain would have to mine and accumulate work for two years.
A statistics website by developer Pieter Wuille shows the number of days it would take to reorganize the network, among other interesting data. However, that metric does not include the adjustment to difficulty, which would increase as the malicious mining hash rate also grows.
Those Attacks Require Investing a Lot of Energy, Processing Power, and Time
Even though reorganization attacks are possible, they are impractical, as a miner would have to invest a lot of energy, processing power, and time. In other words, creating a blockchain that seems as valid as the one he intends to replace is not an easy task.
On May 7th, cryptocurrency exchange Binance reported a security breach that allowed the theft of 7,000 BTC from its hot wallet. By paying USD 68 in fees, the attackers could steal more than USD 40 million.
Amid that situation, developer Jeremy Rubin suggested applying a reorganization of blocks in the chain to reverse the theft. Changpeng Zhao, CEO of the exchange, considered that idea, believing it could return them to their state before the event.
Network Nodes Would Have to Ignore that the New Blockchain Is Not Real
For the attackers to succeed, the nodes on the network would have to ignore that the new blockchain is false. Precisely, their primary function is to maintain the consensus regarding the real one.
However, the metric helps estimate and assess the amount of work invested in making Bitcoin a robust, secure and practically unchangeable network through its mining. For example, miners outperformed their processing power repeatedly over the past few weeks.
Miners started 2022 by reaching 209 exahashes per second (EH/s), but the hash rate fell back to 170 EH/s. The network maintained those levels on average throughout December 2021.
According to Glassnode, the hash rate of the leading cryptocurrency on the market at the close of January 1st, 2022, was 209.9 EH/s. That happened three weeks after the processing power hit an all-time high of 198 EH/s. In that way, it broke the levels seen in early May before China banned the activity.
Other Positive News about the Bitcoin network in 2021
Last year, Bitcoin mining took other crucial steps in 2021, such as achieving geographical decentralization. Besides, it went public on the stock exchange and made its energy consumption more efficient and sustainable.
Latin America emerged as one of the regions with the best conditions for Bitcoin mining to continue to develop. The regulations of digital mining advanced in El Salvador, Paraguay and Brazil, which hope to attract miners who had to leave China.
For example, the Salvadoran government plans to allow mining Bitcoin with cheap energy that is 100% clean and renewable. It would also reduce the emission of CO2, taking advantage of volcanic activity, according to Nayib Bukele.
By Alexander Salazar
