Security would be lacking in bitcoin. Because the Proof-of-Work consensus mechanism is threatened by the current state of network decentralization.
Bitcoin, in danger?
The development of Ethereum must go through decentralization, breathes Vitalik Buterin during a presentation of the new roadmap which earned him a public lynching on social networks. Except that decentralization, which makes bitcoin unique, worries some analysts.
“ Is Bitcoin Security Under Threat? because of its current status of decentralization by consensus? Cryptocurrency researcher Chris Blec is concerned about the dominance of two mining pools. Join the discussion. »
This tweet is based on a publication by Chris Blec dated December 14 which states that:
“ This is not a good chart. 2 mining pools (which require all miners to do KYC) represent 55% of the bitcoin hash rate. We could be one chess move away from big problems for bitcoin. But the worst part is that no one really wants to talk about it. Where is the emergency? »
The image below provides other data which highlights the monopoly of Foundry USA and AntPool in terms of global Bitcoin hashrate. Both, which are mining pools included in cooperatives of BTC mining companies, represent 27.6% hash rate.
For Chris Blec, the threat to Bitcoin consensus does not only come from these two pools. The lack of community awareness about the centralization of bitcoin mining is also very problematic.
The coordination of Bitcoin mining pools is worrying: in fact, the level of centralization remains very high. It creates the block model, adds transactions to the pool, filters unwanted transactions, as is done with illegitimate transactions on Ethereum, and broadcasts the mined block to the Bitcoin network.
Apart from that, the coordinator offers himself a reward from his mining activities and redistributes it to the miners.
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