It seems that it might be more difficult than expected to perform a 51% attack on Bitcoin’s network. According to Professor Saravanan Vijayakumaran, an Associate professor at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay, a 51% attack on Bitcoin’s network would require ‘significant expenditure’ and would provide ‘little financial returns.’

This information was released in a research paper titled ‘The Security of the Bitcoin Protocol.’ and was sponsored by the cryptocurrency exchange Zebpay.

The main three points analysed in this research were related to stealing Bitcoin, tampering confirmed and unconfirmed transactions and how to disrupt the normal operations of the network.

First of all, a 51% attack happens when there is one entity or a group of entities that own the majority of the hash rate and want to prevent transactions from confirming or revise transaction history. For example, earlier this year, Bitcoin Gold experienced a 51% attack.

According to Mr Vijayakumaran, performing a 51% attack on the network would require a massive amount of computational power, which is not easy to get. Moreover, the results would not be financially considerable. Additionally, the study shows that it would not be possible for an attacker to steal Bitcoin, instead, it would only be possible to insert or remove transactions.

The professor wrote about it:

“While launching a 51% attack requires significant expenditure with little financial returns, it is not out of reach of a hostile nation-state. Until an adversary of that stature emerges, the Bitcoin protocol can be considered secure.”

Zebpay CEO Ajeet Khurana commented about this research explaining that Bitcoin is moving toward the financial mainstream. In the research, the professor investigated the security of the Bitcoin protocol.

Zebpay is an important and recognized cryptocurrency exchange in the market. At the time of writing, Zebpay is the 201 largest exchange in the market in terms of trading volume.

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