Why Is a 51% Attack More Difficult on Bitcoin than on Smaller PoW Chains?
A 51% attack on Bitcoin is prohibitively expensive because of the immense, decentralized scale of its network hashrate. Acquiring and maintaining the necessary specialized mining hardware (ASICs) and the associated electricity cost to consistently control over 50% of the global hashrate is economically infeasible for most entities.
Smaller PoW chains have much lower barriers to entry.
Glossar
Smaller PoW Chains
Vulnerability ⎊ Smaller PoW chains are Proof-of-Work blockchains characterized by lower hash rates compared to major networks like Bitcoin.
Specialized Mining Hardware
Hardware ⎊ Specialized mining hardware, within the context of cryptocurrency, options trading, and financial derivatives, represents a class of computing equipment optimized for intensive computational tasks, particularly those underpinning blockchain consensus mechanisms and complex quantitative modeling.