Equilibrium 51% Attack Cost of Bitcoin Network

[Lodewijk andré de la porte]

This is a bit self delusional. "Use your opponent's strength against him",
sway pools to support your cause. Or better yet: start pools with possibly
negative profit. Pay-per-share but you payout a tad more than you actually
could. That way people will consider your service the most profitable, ergo
the best, and flock to give you shares at an extremely discounted rated (it
only costs you whatever you add to it).

Better yet: force existing pool owners a: out of business, b: to support
you!

Better yet: subvert pool managing computers! Make the machines support you!
Or do MITM attacks to get the shares instead of the pools!

Maybe just subverting the developers (enough are US based, hint hint) to
write a teensy exploit.

Just cracking the central exchanges and everything that accepts Bitcoin
will also cause a rather big stir. A small division breaking into
bitcoin-accepting services and selling the bitcoins will lower the price
directly and decrease trust significantly.

Visa and Mastercard not providing services to Bitcoin accepting customers
would also be quite effective.

Bascially, the cost is lower legally than it is otherwise. And a 51% attack
can be solved with a trust model, should people wish to do so.

Lastly you must imagine there's plenty of computing power available to most
governments on that list. Temporarily using that power for the time of the
attack is a fairly good idea (depending on what you want to do with a 51%
attack), and not the full price at all. A cost/hr would be much more useful
(imho).
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