What Is “Rentable Hash Rate” and Why Is It a Risk Factor for Low-Difficulty Coins?

Rentable hash rate refers to the computational power available for temporary lease through cloud mining services or hash power marketplaces. This is a risk for low-difficulty coins because an attacker does not need to own expensive hardware; they can simply rent a massive amount of hash power for a short duration to execute a 51% attack.

Since low-difficulty coins require less absolute hash rate, it is often feasible to rent enough to achieve a majority, making the attack easily scalable and non-committal.