We really shouldn't have to go over "Bitcoin 101" on this mailing list, and this discussion should move to the not-yet-created more general discussion list.  I started this thread as a sanity check on myself, because I keep seeing smart people saying that two chains could persist for more than a few days after a hard fork, and I still don't see how that would possibly work.

So: "fraud" would be 51% miners sending you bitcoin in exchange for something of value, you wait for confirmations and send them that something of value, and then the 51% reverses the transaction.

Running a full node doesn't help.

On Tue, Sep 29, 2015 at 1:55 PM, Allen Piscitello <allen.piscitello@gmail.com> wrote:

>A dishonest miner majority can commit fraud against you, they can mine only empty blocks, they can do various other things that render your money worthless.

Mining empty blocks is not fraud.

If you want to use terms like "honest miners" and "fraud", please define them so we can at least be on the same page.

I am defining an honest miner as one that follows the rules of the protocol.  Obviously your definition is different.

On Tue, Sep 29, 2015 at 12:51 PM, Mike Hearn <hearn@vinumeris.com> wrote:

>because Bitcoin's basic security assumption is that a supermajority of miners are 'honest.'

Only if you rely on SPV.

No, you rely on miners honesty even if you run a full node. This is in the white paper. A dishonest miner majority can commit fraud against you, they can mine only empty blocks, they can do various other things that render your money worthless.

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Gavin Andresen