A 51% attack doesn't let you steal random people's money.

It absolutely does, just not directly. Say that you have 100k fiat equivilent in monero and I demonstrate a successful monero double-spend attack. How much do you think your monero is worth?

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do_not_redeem 4 days ago | parent [-]

My man. What do you think the word "steal" means? You can't just redefine words because you don't like new technology.

Do we need to drop down to 1st grade story problems?

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Alice has 1 apple. Eve has 0 apples.

Eve steals Alice's apple.

Now Alice has 0 apples. Eve has 1 apple.

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Alice has 1 XMR. Eve has 0 XMR.

Eve 51% attacks Alice's network.

How many XMR does Alice have? How many XMR does Eve have? Show your work.

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idiotsecant 3 days ago | parent [-]

The only reason this seems like an unusual definition to you is that you haven't thought about it very hard, yet. The critical thing is not how many XMR you have. It's what value those XMR carry. If I create from thin air 1000 XMR and it's known to the market I didn't just 'make' a certain amount of value, I made myself richer by making a lot of people less so. I stole value from them and gave it to myself, just like someone stealing a ham at the market. The only difference is that instead of burning one ham of value for one ham of benefit, I burn many ham of value for one ham of benefit.

	▲	aydyn 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		This is an excellent explanation and I'd also point out that it generalizes to fiat not just crypto. But its nice not to think about that too much.