In June, behemoth bitcoin-mining pool GHash.io briefly gained more than half of the total network hashrate, a move that caused many to question just how secure bitcoin’s much-touted decentralized network really was. The situation was a wake-up call for many, as it meant that the long-hypothesized “51% attack” wasn’t as implausible as many experts had […]

Few organizations in the bitcoin community have been the subject of such heated debate as GHash.io. On the one hand, GHash has created one of the most user-friendly, efficient and low payout-variability pools in the cryptocurrency world, leveraging their own dedicated cloud mining system to encourage high rewards for independent contributors. On the other, GHash […]

Bitcoin cloud mining company PetaMine controls about 1150 TH/s of hashing power, accounting for just under 1% of the current network hashrate. The company has generally pointed its miners at mega-pool GHash.io, but with that group recently coming under serious criticism for having more than 51% of the total network’s hash rate, PetaMine’s organizers have […]

Over the weekend, bitcoin mega-pool GHash.io controlled more than half of the network’s hashing power. Given that bitcoin was designed to be decentralized, with no particular party having any significant authority over the network, this was a deeply troubling development. Even worse, the GHash situation was a clear demonstration that bitcoin was unambiguously vulnerable to […]

Industrial bitcoin mining company BitFury announced today that it has moved 1.5 petahash from the GHash.io pool following widespread concerns of hashrate centralization and growing fears about the potential of a 51% attack. The company maintains two high-powered mining facilities in Iceland and Finland, taking advantage of those countries extremely low energy costs. Should the […]

Back in May Bitcoin Foundation Chief Scientist told a crowd at the Bitcoin2014: “I still don’t care about mining [except] in the way it affects user experiences.” In the past two months, however, the situation has changed. Writing for the official Bitcoin Foundation blog today, Andresen expressed deep concerns about centralized mining and the impact […]

Yesterday, mining pool giant GHash.io controlled fully half of the hashing power of the entire bitcoin network. For a distributed network that relies on trustless consensus, having the majority of the “voting” power controlled by a single mining pool is more than a little problematic. Most notably, it opens up the bitcoin network to the […]

The possible 51% scenario crisis over the weekend has been averted, with bitcoin miners leaving GHash.io for other pools. GHash.io is still the most popular mining pool, with 33% of the total hashrate, but the problematic scenario surrounding any one pool gaining the majority of the network hashing power has been averted. While there was […]