China doesn't have 68% of hashrate, but 68% of hashrate comes from chinese pools. That's different.
and yes, it is certainly a problem.. this could be more decentralized, but that's not that bad.

No. Chinese government does not control the pools. Pools are not that coordinated and if there war a slightly chance that this could happen, miners would just move to another pools.

Take a look at this graph from blockchain.com


source:https://www.blockchain.com/charts/pools

There are many different individuals who controls those pools. They are not the same people, and they do not own the hash power: miners can move to other pools at any time.

If you are suggesting a mega-thread, please summarize that thread first and include it in your suggestion post.

It's not worth it for now, but what if it happens in the future where bitcoin cant be mined anymore or when the bitcoin block reward is already too small and makes the bitcoin network difficulty becomes so low?

Since Chinese President Xi Jinping has publicly supported the blockchain, it can be expected that China’s share will become even bigger. It will be one of the ways to control technology in the absence of competitors from the United States.

It does unless they're operating illegally.  I suppose in this case, it gives the CCP a good reason to just 'requisition' the pool.

China has had over 50% of hashing power from about one or two years after the introduction of ASICs.

Difficulty will decrease if people quit mining.  This will then make it more profitable for those that are still mining, or start back up.  At least until the next difficulty change ...

Energy costs less now.

ed: Ah, I should have said electricity.  Too much crowing about my VDE and the 10% dividend yield @ $33 purchase price.  Anyway, since difficulty adjustment is in 20 hours it is probable that difficulty won't fall as much as it should as this will be some 50-50 split of 12.5 and 6.25 blocks ... then what?  Slower blocks, with transaction fees going up quite a bit, which in theory should compensate for some of this loss.

This may well be Triggering, causing ppl to rage sell their bitcoin & drop the price. That could drop off more miners, making the blocks even slower, and increasing fees even more. Ponder it under the tree of woe, just as I have pondered the delay of the release of the New New Warriors, featuring Trailblazer, Safespace, Snowflake, some emo vampire sir, and Screentime (poor fella was exposed to way too much experimental internet gas as a kid).

'Blockchain' will allow them to squeeze their population harder than ever. That's what truly interests them about the technology.

China's leadership doesn't give the slightest shit about Bitcoin. They've done enough to turn off enough of the population.

Bitcoin's protocol doesn't just rely on the idea that no one will get 51% of hashpower to avoid getting attacked, the point of PoW is to make attacks so expensive that it would deter attackers from doing it. So, theoretically miners could try it, but it would be hard to profit from it, and it won't be sustainable in the long run. Also, from the point of view of miners, it's like killing your goose that lays golden eggs - if their attack is successful, it would cause panic and drop the price, thus reducing their profits from mining.

My point is that this has been discussed many times already. I have said my piece, it's not worth a try.


You talking about 2140? Again, why not look at the current circulating supply? We are closer to that 'almost all bitcoin have been mined", specially in the next 3 halvings: 2024 , 2028 , 2032. 1.5625 Bitcoin for Block ->225 Bitcoin every day. So it will be really costly to try and pull this 51% attack.

that only considers bitcoin's mining incentives. the real danger of highly concentrated mining inside china's borders are incentives that are external to the bitcoin protocol.

here is one possible motive for such an attack: the chinese government forcing miners and mining pools to attack the network under threat of imprisonment.

now you might say this is an unlikely scenario, and maybe you're right, but it exemplifies the problem of thinking about this issue purely in terms of the bitcoin protocol. if the chinese government wanted to crush confidence in bitcoin this is one possible option---and since they can leverage the capital of miners (instead of their own) they can do it at virtually no cost.

Does the US make any components anymore?

Are we already a vassal state of China?

The whole picture changes if BTC goes to 10 trillion. That kind of money topples governments or the government topples the miners within it borders.