Ethereum (ETH) Community Researcher Justin Drake Suggests Bitcoin (BTC) Is Much Easier to 51% Attack

Justin Drake, an Ethereum community researcher, suggests that executing a 51% attack on the Bitcoin network is much easier and less costly than attempting a similar attack on Ethereum.

Ethereum community researcher Justin Drake suggests that executing a 51% attack on the Bitcoin network is much easier and less costly compared to attempting a similar attack on Ethereum.

While Drake notes that a 51% attack on Bitcoin would be very expensive, at an estimated cost of around $10 billion, it is still possible. In contrast, he argues that Ethereum would be much harder and more expensive to attack due to its Proof-of-Stake (PoS) security, which would require an attacker to control at least half of the network.

"It would be harder to attack Ethereum because of PoS. Right now, there are over 34 million ETH being staked, which is about $89.6 billion. So, to get 51% of the stake would require paying about $44.8 billion to take over the majority of the stake."

During an interview with Cointelegraph, Drake, a key figure in the Ethereum Merge that transitioned the network to PoS, further elaborated on the unique challenges an attacker would face when targeting the Ethereum chain.

His remarks align with a May 14 X post by Grant Hummer, co-founder of Ethereum-focused company Etherealize, who estimated the cost of a Bitcoin 51% attack at around $8 billion. Hummer further suggested that if this cost drops to $2 billion, a successful attack on Bitcoin is almost inevitable.

1. Respectfully, BTC is completely screwed because of its security budget. It would only cost $8B to 51% attack BTC today. When this gets down to $2B (AKA, BTC's security market cap becomes 0.1% of its asset market cap), a 51% attack is virtually certain to happen. This will… pic.twitter.com/ZtP8gH9y4c

— Grant Hummer (@DegenGrant) May 14, 2024

Hummer also highlights that the most critical issue for Bitcoin is its “security budget,” which he believes matters more as the mining rewards for maintaining the Bitcoin network are lessened.

With a lowering of these rewards, he suggests it becomes simpler for a single entity to dominate the network, a situation that threatens its decentralized system.

In addition to the high cost, Drake points out that an attacker would also need to overcome Ethereum’s “social layer” of defense. This aspect of Ethereum’s security relies on the collective action of the network’s community, which can identify and penalize malicious actors through social slashing, a process unavailable in Bitcoin’s proof-of-work (PoW) framework.

Industry experts have expressed mixed opinions regarding the feasibility of such attacks. According to Matan Sitbon, the CEO of Lightblocks, even though Ethereum is secure through cryptography, it truly relies on the support provided by the community.

Meanwhile, Pavel Yashin stated, if the network is detected to be centralized, Ethereum can deal with the threat by forking the network, effectively isolating compromised chains.

Hassan Khan, CEO of Ordeez, a Bitcoin liquidity protocol, admitted to the theoretical risk but stated that the high amount of energy needed makes a sustained 51% attack on Bitcoin unlikely, despite its higher theoretical vulnerability.