I'm curious, has anyone done any back of the envelope calculations on this?
Let's say the US Government started a side-chain starting at the very first transaction and has kept it within it's own firewall, and has been mining for years at optimal difficulty levels so that they have to put in the least amount of work. Which now that I think about it, would just be difficulty 1, and the only reason to go above difficulty 1 would be because you started after the original chain, and you would only up the difficulty right before you were going to release it to the public.
Could they at any moment open it up and everyone would move over to their chain since it is the longest, where suddenly the US Gov owns every single coin and there's never been a single transaction?
Let's say the US Government started a side-chain starting at the very first transaction and has kept it within it's own firewall, and has been mining for years at optimal difficulty levels so that they have to put in the least amount of work. Which now that I think about it, would just be difficulty 1, and the only reason to go above difficulty 1 would be because you started after the original chain, and you would only up the difficulty right before you were going to release it to the public.
Could they at any moment open it up and everyone would move over to their chain since it is the longest, where suddenly the US Gov owns every single coin and there's never been a single transaction?