The bitcoin community endured a scare earlier this week when mining pool GHash.IO‘s hashing market share reached a whopping 42%, leaving many wondering if the potential was there for the pool to carry out a 51% attack on the bitcoin network.
Scores of users took to bitcoin-related boards and pleaded for miners in the GHash.IO pool to join another pool, in order to bring GHash.IO’s market share down.
It worked.
As of Friday, data provided by Blockchain.info indicates GHash.IO is now at 28% hashing market share in the past twenty-four hours. Undoubtedly an immense improvement, but many argue it’s still not enough.
“That’s great news, but 30% is still way too high for a single pool,” writes a Reddit user on the topic. And it’s true. Leaving this much market share with one pool is irresponsible — especially considering that a 51% attack could very well be the Achilles heel of the bitcoin protocol.
GHash.IO isn’t the only pool with a huge percentage of market share, though. BTC Guild comes in second place with 22%, and Eligius with 14%.
The hope moving forward is that mining in pools will become more diversified, and thus eliminating the possibility of a 51% attack. But will it happen?