<p>One may speculate on this, but this was already taken into account in the design of Bitcoin. Essentially an attacker would not choose to attack the network because it would hurt their own investment. In the <a href="https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">whitepaper</a>, Satoshi states:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>if a greedy attacker is able to assemble more CPU power
  than all the honest nodes, he would have to choose between using it to
  defraud people by stealing back his payments, or using it to generate
  new coins.  He ought to find it more profitable to play by the rules,
  such rules that favour him with more new coins than everyone else
  combined, than to undermine the system and the validity of his own
  wealth.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Now to speculate, if there was another reason which made it more profitable to attack the network than to support it, those who support the valid chain could hard fork and put a new consensus rule that would put the attacker at a disadvantage. A potential solution commonly discussed is using a different proof of work algorithm, which would make their current mining hardware basically useless. </p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-10-11T03:35:29.500Z
Of course, profit is not the only possible motivation, and one can certainly imagine reasons why a group might want to interfere with Bitcoin, even at a financial cost.
Nate Eldredge
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-10-11T04:20:08.643Z
How about China control a majority of Bitcoin Cash mining power and coins. Take out Bitcoin to push a new agenda while stealing its name recognition.
Patoshi パトシ
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-10-11T03:26:46.493Z
2018-10-11T03:26:46.493Z
JBaczuk
<p>There was a report recently (<a href="https://arxiv.org/pdf/1810.02466.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://arxiv.org/pdf/1810.02466.pdf</a>) that stated that China controls 74% of the hashing power. They can choose to collude and attack the network by either doing a 51% attack or stall the network by not including any transactions. </p>

<p>If China did attack the Bitcoin network. Are there any contingency plans in place to recover the network with a fork of some sort? What would happen? </p>

<mining-theory><attack><majority-attack><future-proof><china>
Bitcoin is attacked by China miners by screwing with the network, what will Bitcoin do?
Patoshi パトシ
# Bitcoin is attacked by China miners by screwing with the network, what will Bitcoin do?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2018-10-10)

There was a report recently (<https://arxiv.org/pdf/1810.02466.pdf>) that stated that China controls 74% of the hashing power. They can choose to collude and attack the network by either doing a 51% attack or stall the network by not including any transactions.

If China did attack the Bitcoin network. Are there any contingency plans in place to recover the network with a fork of some sort? What would happen?

**Tags:** mining-theory, attack, majority-attack, future-proof, china


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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2018-10-11. Score: 1

One may speculate on this, but this was already taken into account in the design of Bitcoin. Essentially an attacker would not choose to attack the network because it would hurt their own investment. In the [whitepaper](https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf), Satoshi states:

> if a greedy attacker is able to assemble more CPU power
> than all the honest nodes, he would have to choose between using it to
> defraud people by stealing back his payments, or using it to generate
> new coins. He ought to find it more profitable to play by the rules,
> such rules that favour him with more new coins than everyone else
> combined, than to undermine the system and the validity of his own
> wealth.

Now to speculate, if there was another reason which made it more profitable to attack the network than to support it, those who support the valid chain could hard fork and put a new consensus rule that would put the attacker at a disadvantage. A potential solution commonly discussed is using a different proof of work algorithm, which would make their current mining hardware basically useless.

> **Comments:**
> **username_2**: Of course, profit is not the only possible motivation, and one can certainly imagine reasons why a group might want to interfere with Bitcoin, even at a financial cost.  
> **username_0**: How about China control a majority of Bitcoin Cash mining power and coins. Take out Bitcoin to push a new agenda while stealing its name recognition.  

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