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How many confirmations are equivalent to 6 Bitcoin confirmations?

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How many confirmations are equivalent to 6 Bitcoin confirmations? - howmanyconfs.com

Compare the time required for an equivalent amount of work to be completed between different Proof-of-Work blockchains.

How are these values calculated?

It's easy to compare blockchain hashrates when the Proof-of-Work algorithm is the same. For example if Bitcoin has a hashrate of SHA-256 @ 150,000 PH/s and Bitcoin Cash has a hashrate of SHA-256 @ 3,000 PH/s, it's easy to see that for a given period of time the Bitcoin blockchain will have 50x (150,000/3,000) the amount of work securing it than the Bitcoin Cash blockchain. Or to say that differently, you need to wait for 50x more Bitcoin Cash confirmations before an equivalent amount of work has been done compared to the Bitcoin blockchain. So 6 Bitcoin confirmations would be roughly equivalent to 300 Bitcoin Cash confirmations in terms of the amount of work done.

However if the Proof-of-Work algorithms are different, how can we compare the hashrate? If we're comparing Bitcoin (SHA-256 @ 150,000 PH/s) against Litecoin (Scrypt @ 350 TH/s), the hashes aren't equal, one round of SHA-256 is not equivalent to one round of Scrypt.

What we really want to know is how much power is being consumed on each chain to provide the current hash rate. Literal power, as in watts. So how can we calculate that?

Well it's actually pretty simple.

• Find the most advanced publically available hardware for a chains PoW algorithm.
• Calculate the devices hashing efficiency in joules per hash (j/h).
• Multiply the chain's hashrate by it's PoW algorithms j/h value.
• Now we have the total watts consumed by the blockchain.

Note: This makes the assumption that every single miner for the blockchain is using the most advanced hardware, which isn't true, but it's close enough.

The power consumption in watts can then be used as a reliable metric to compare Proof-of-Work between chains.

As an example:

Bitcoin

• Algo: SHA-256
• Hashrate: 150,000 PH/s
• Best Miner: Antminer S19 Pro (110 TH/s @ 3250 W)
• Joules per hash: 3250 W / 110 TH/s = 0.000000000029545 J
• Watts: 150,000 PH/s * 0.000000000029545 J = 4.43 GW

Litecoin

• Algo: Scrypt
• Hashrate: 350 TH/s
• Best Miner: Innosilicon A6+ LTCMaster (2.2Gh/s @ 2100 W)
• Joules per hash: 2100 W / 2.2Gh/s = 0.000000954545455 J
• Watts: 350 TH/s * 0.000000954545455 J = 334 MW

So we can deduce from those calculations, if the entire Bitcoin hashrate was mined by Antminer S19 Pros it would require 4.5 GW of power, and if the entire Litecoin hashrate was mined by Innosilicon A6+s it would require 330 MW of power.

Therefore Litecoin's hashrate is around 7% (330/4500) the power of Bitcoin's, it takes around 14x longer for the Litecoin blockchain to do the same amount of work.

Once we've done the above calculations and got power consumption in watts for each blockchain, we can calculate the equivalent amount of confirmations across chains by factoring in the average block time and calculating the energy required for a given number of blocks. Then we check how many blocks are required on the other blockchain at it's power consumption to expend an equivalent amount of energy.

So to calculate how many Litecoin confirmations are equivalent to 6 Bitcoin confirmations we would do:

• Bitcoin (SHA-256 @ 150,000,338 PH/s = 4.43 GW)
• Litecoin (Scrypt @ 350 TH/s = 334 MW)
• Bitcoin's average block time is 10 minutes (600 seconds)
• 6 Bitcoin confirmations on average is 60 minutes (3,600 seconds)
• Bitcoin's total energy required for 6 confirmations is (4.43 GW * 3,600 seconds) 15.94 terajoules
• At Litecoin's power consumption of 330 MW it would take (15.94 terajoules / 334 MW) 47,724 seconds (13 hours) to complete an equivalent amount of work
• Litecoin's average block time is 2.5 minutes (150 seconds)
• The amount of Litecoin blocks expected over this period of time is (47,724 seconds / 150 seconds) 318 blocks.

Therefore we can say that 318 Litecoin confirmations are roughly equal to 6 Bitcoin confirmations in total amount of work done.

Notes

These metrics are measuring "work done", not security.

More "work done" doesn't necessarily mean "more security".

For example take the following two blockchains:

• Bitcoin Cash (SHA-256 @ 3,000 PH/s = 90 MW)
• Zcash (Equihash @ 6 GH/s = 20 MW)

Bitcoin Cash has higher power consumption than Zcash so we can deduce it has more "work done" over a given timeframe than Zcash. However does that really mean it's more secure?

Zcash is the dominant blockchain for it's Proof-of-Work algorithm (Equihash). Whereas Bitcoin Cash isn't, it uses the same algorithm as Bitcoin. In fact just 2% of Bitcoin's hashrate is equivalent to all of Bitcoin Cash's hashrate.

This means the cost of a 51% attack against Bitcoin Cash could actually be much lower than a 51% attack against Zcash, even though you need to aquire more MW of hashpower, the cost to aquire that hashpower will likely be lower.

To attack Bitcoin Cash you don't need to acquire any hardware, you just need to convince 2% of the Bitcoin hashrate to lend their SHA-256 hashpower to you.

To attack Zcash, you would likely need to fabricate your own Equihash ASICs, as almost all the Equihash mining hardware in the world is already securing Zcash.

Accurately calculating security is much more complicated.

These metrics give a good estimated value to compare the hashrate accross different Proof-of-Work blockchains.

However to calculate if a payment can be considered "finalised" involves many more variables.

You should factor in:

• Is this cryptocurrency the dominant cryptocurrency for it's Proof-of-Work algorithm?
• What is the market cap of this cryptocurrency?
• What is the daily trading volume of this cryptocurrency?
• What is the $ value of this transaction?

If the cryptocurrency isn't the dominant cryptocurrency for it's Proof-of-Work algorithm it can be attacked much more cheaply.

If the market cap or trading volume is really low, an attacker may crash the price of the currency before they can successfully double spend it and make a profit. Although that's more relevant in the context of exchanges rather than individuals accepting payments.

If the value of the transaction is low enough, it may cost more to double spend than an attacker would profit from the double spend.

Ultimately, once the cost of a double spend becomes higher than an attacker can expect to profit from the double spend, that is when a payment can probably be considered "finalised".

Something wrong?

Do you think I've made a mistake or got something wrong? Please open an issue or submit a pull request and let me know!

Credit

Cryptocurrency data is pulled from whattomine.com.

License

MIT © Luke Childs

howmanyconfs.com's Issues

Please Add Cardano (ADA)

Please add Cardano (ADA)

Time to add Kaspa, already the #4 most secure PoW network

Time to add Kaspa, which is already the most secure after BTC, LTC and DOGE.
I would not be surprised if it flips BTC too. Not joking.

Have a nice day.

Sort order should display fastest confirming coin in position #1 rather than be hard-coded to Bitcoin.

Add Viacoin

Is it possible that you add Viacoin (VIA)?

Site is down

Site is down due to crypto51.app API no longer returning a number for the attack_hourly_cost property.

Miner revenue is a more accurate metric

Estimating H/s and Watt/H isn't very accurate. Nic Carter uses miner revenue to compare settlement velocity.

A dash transaction is now as secure as a 6 conf bitcoin transaction in about 2 seconds

With chain looked instant send now activated a dash transaction is secure about 1800 x faster than bitcoin. Details here,

https://blog.dash.org/mitigating-51-attacks-with-llmq-based-chainlocks-7266aa648ec9

The fastest cryptocurrency (Nano) is missing from the website

Hello all,

I couldn't find Nano listed on your website. It uses Open Representative Voting (ORV) instead of Proof of Work (PoW) for consensus, and median confirmation times for irreversibility (i.e. full-conf) are around 0.18 seconds:

https://repnode.org/network/propagation-confirmation

https://www.nanospeed.live/Stats

Due to block cementing, transactions cannot be reversed even in a 51% attack. Furthermore, since every account has its own blockchain, attackers can't reverse or spend other people's Nano because they won't have the account's private key

Regards,
Qwahzi

Fix ETH/DaggerHashimoto calculations

I'm not an ethereum fan, but it should be fair. Ethereum is quicker atm, so there should be a state for that.

Price x block / double spend

I can be interesting if you add a way to easy understand the cost of a double spend for every cryptocurrecy.

Bitcoin's total $ cost for 6 confirmations is ($100 * 3,600 seconds) $360,000

This generally means that if I've to receive a transfer of $360,000 I should wait 6 confirmation on Bitcoin.
The miner has an incentive to not try to double spend his tx if I'm waiting 6 confirmation and the value in $ transfered is less then that value ($360,000)

If the value is way higher (like 1 billion), maybe even 6 confirmations aren't anymore enough.

The same, for every other cryptocurreny on your list.

Something like that the user can enter somewhere how much he wants to receive (in usd), and the website will advise which is the right amount of confirmations that he should wait on that chain. (because the cost to double spend will be higher then the value of the tx)

Currently your website has this fixed amount set on the cost to double spend a tx with 6 confirmation on Bitcoin.

The user should be able to change it.

KMD stats

Does not account for dPoW

Please add Kadena

would be very interested to see kadena in comparison to btc at current state (20chains etc)

adding DCR Decred

Decred is a hybrid PoW/PoS chain.

More data is here https://explorer.dcrdata.org/

https://explorer.dcrdata.org/charts?chart=hashrate

Sorting by Proof of Work, doesn't work...

Hey there, It seems that sorting by Proof of Work doesn't completely sort by that.
I thin the other ones are fine.

Where is the difficulty ?

Hey,
its look like a interesting project also the stastistic is in a good overview but one main parameter to compare different Algos also different Hashrates is the difficulty.

For example if Bitcoin has a hashrate of SHA-256 @ 40 PH/s and Bitcoin Cash has a hashrate of SHA-256 @ 2 PH/s, it's easy to see that for a given period of time the Bitcoin blockchain will have 20x (40/2) the amount of work securing it than the Bitcoin Cash blockchain

The amount of "more secure" work in this time is just to guess the right nounce to match the prefix 0 from the difficulty in this Proof of Work Chain. Its not more secure or lesser secure its just a random Number with enough 0 infront to verfiy the right block.

Your overview :

Bitcoin (BTC)	$142.35 B	SHA-256 @ 52,262 PH/s	6 confs	55m 6s	-
Bitcoin Cash (BCH)	$7.37 B	SHA-256 @ 2,418 PH/s	125 confs	19h 53m	22x slower
Bitcoin SV (BSV)	$1.15 B	SHA-256 @ 426 PH/s	631 confs	4d 16h	123x slower
Litecoin Cash (LCC)	$6.49 M	SHA-256 @ 8 PH/s	201.059 confs	242d 22m	6.325x slower

And here the Difficulty Overview for SHA 256

Bitcoin Difficulty	6,704,632,680,587	(1x)
Bitcoin Cash Difficulty	325,914,761,076	(20,5x)
Bitcoin SV Difficulty	66,795,632,530	(100)
LitecoinCash	219,703,639	(30516x)

If we compare the difficulty overview to your overview for example BTC vs. BCH there is 21,61x more mining Power in Bitcoin but als the Difficulty is 20,5x higher than BCH. Is we multiplied the Hashrate 2418 x 20,5 its like 49,569 the different here is ~5% and not x22

Bitcoin SV have 426PH x 100 Difficulty Diff = 42,600 = ~19% and not x 123
Litecoin Cash have 8PH x 30516 Difficulty Diff = 244,128 = Bitcoin Mining Value x 4,6

Its looks like Litecoin Cash have a 4,6x faster mining power based on difficulty as bitcoin and its not 6325x slower because its dont need the same luck as bitcoin with there nounce but its not more or less secure in this moment.

At least comparing other Algos with SHA 256 is also not possible with just calculate the price for a rented hashrate there many more factors, SHA 256 is the easiest Algo to mine and without a difficulty calcuation,, a revenue overview or a GPU or ASIC comparison the column "Difference" dont state any real value more a random multiplier.

Bitcoin Antminer S17	53 TH/s	$2030
Litecoin Antminer L3++	580 MH/s	$213

If we do some simple math here - 53000000 MH/s / 580 MH/S = 91379
your statement looks like "1 x S17 is comparable to 91379 x L3+ and this is nonsense.

Maybe you should add colums like difficulty and also a "algo waste multi" to get real and fair values.

Dash Chainlocks

Since you made this dash implemented chainlocks which secures dash through a check point type system. The cost of a attack is now 51% of the hashing power and 60% of the staked masternodes from what i understand. As of today there are 4923 masternodes that have dash staked. 4923MN × $80000MNcost × 60% = 236million. All these transactions are locked immediately in the mempool too. Conformations for dash are almost entirely a non-consideration now. Especially if you consider it's nearly impossible to buy 60% of MN's

Relative confirmation speeds should be computed relative to fastest confirming coin, rather than always compare to Bitcoin

"1x slower" should be "same"

On the first place it shows bitcoin with 49 minutes and for the difference it shows "-"
on the second place it shows ETH wih 51 minutes and difference collumns says "1x slower"
Using times is somewhat misleading in this sense. "1x slower" should be showed when it would take 98 minutes. If that is the case, it should also show the difference that BTC confirmations are "1x slower".

Current values in the "difference" column should be substracted 1. Thus it should show that BTC is "0x slower" and for ETH "0,04x slower". Personaly i think that 0x-0,25x (~15 minutes) should show as a special case which shows "same".
Instead of "difference", a more appropriate column name would be better: "slowness", "factor", "ratio"?

Dash has Chainlocks and LLMQ InstantSend and now requires 0 conf to be more secure than 6 bitcoin confirmations

Dash has Chainlocks and LLMQ InstantSend and now requires 0 conf to be as secure as 6 bitcoin confirmations. Please change you website to reflect this, if this is not done then people should consider this site to be spreading FUD.

Thank you