The verification risk calculator created by software and Bitcoiner engineer Jameson Lopp is featured in the Bitcoin Ecosystem (BTC) as a useful tool for understanding the safety of transactions within that chain.
This development allows us to quantify the level of certainty that users can have when accepting payments after confirming a certain number in the network. In the ecosystem Centralization of Mining And the computing power of the Great Pool raises questions about the robustness of the system. This calculator provides a technical and accurate approach Assess the risk of double costs I’m not Bitcoin.
Lopp is a person associated with the Bitcoiner ecosystem to focus on individual security and sovereignty. Recently, as reported by Cryptonotics, for example, he proposed an initiative to burn vulnerable BTC to quantum computing, claiming that this measure protects network integrity from future technical threats.
What is a confirmation risk calculator?
First published on a personal blog in February 2023, the LOPP calculator is a tool designed to assess the probability that a transaction confirmed on the Bitcoin network has been confirmed. Reversal with double cost attacks. This type of attack occurs when a malicious actor attempts to rewrite the blockchain history, cancels an already accepted transaction and spends the same funds on another operation.
A mathematical model-based computer that takes into account the percentage of hashrate (computing power) controlled by an attacker and the number of confirmations received by a transaction. Risk calculation Payment receivers face.
LOPP highlights practical utilities for merchants, exchanges, and individual users who need to determine the number of confirmations before considering a decisive transaction.
Lopp was based on a Bitcoin white paper
Traditionally, engineer Bitconner says that the empirical rules of waiting are used. Six checks to guarantee a 99.99% security levelsuppose that the attacker controls 10% of the world’s hashrate.
However, Lopp claims that this assumption was established in the Bitcoin protocol and reflected in the Nakamoto Atoshi white paper. It is no longer preserved in the current panorama. “These calculations were made long before the invention of mining pools and industrial mining operations. At the time, it was reasonable to assume that it was extremely difficult to have more than 10% of the world’s hashrate,” writes Lopp, noting that since 2011, multiple entities have involved significantly higher participation.
Currently, some mining pools, such as Foundry USA, Antpool, F2Pool, or ViaABTC, are controlled among all the processing power contributed by the pool, according to Mempool.space.
The technical model behind the calculator
The calculator is based on the probabilistic model explained on pages 6 and 7 of the Bitcoin White Paper. Between the honest chain and the attacker chain As a “binomial random walk.”
This mathematical concept describes the process by which a new block represents a step in a particular direction. The advantage of this grows when blocks are generated by honest networks (most hashrates). When generated by an attacker, the chain progresses to reduce the gap. The nature of binomiality comes from the fact that there are only two possible outcomes per round, and probability depends on the power of relative computing.
Lopp explains: “The more players (attackers) are expected to lose in most cases, the less likely they are to win.” Therefore, for attackers with less than 50% of their hashrate, the odds that he can reach and overcome will decrease exponentially as the number of blocks they overcome increases.
A specific example of how Lopp stands out in its analysis is the case of Foundry USA, one of the major mining pools that managed 36% (currently 32%) of the world’s hashrates as of the time of publication of the article (February 2023). According to calculations, if the user accepted the payment after three confirmations, there was a 49% chance of Foundry You can rewrite the chain to perform double expenses.
Updated this analysis with data starting in March 2025 will further reveal the relevance of the LOPP computer. Draw the same equation, but under the current condition of the network, if the user accepts payment today after three confirmations, the probability that Foundry USA can do it is Malicious behavior is almost 52%.
This increase in relation to 49% calculated by LOPP in 2023 suggests that while Foundry currently controls 32% of the hashrate, other factors (such as fluctuations in total hashrate between pools or a larger potential adjustment) could affect risk. How does this data integrated into the LOPP model? Mining power concentration remains an important variable In 2025, we will strengthen the need for such tools to adjust security expectations to network reality.
These calculations show how current mining dynamics have changed traditional security concepts. For example, “the six confirmation standard (assuming an attacker with a 10% hashrate) reaching 99.99% of the certainty that no double costs will be incurred requires 60 confirmations to achieve the same level of confidence,” Lopp said.
Is the pool against the Bitcoin network?
Engineers also make it clear that this scenario does not imply an imminent or systematic threat to Bitcoin. The feasibility of such attacks is limited by practical and economic factors. Mining pool, LOPP details are discouraged to perform this type of operation. This can result in a successful attack that can undermine confidence in the network, and thus, It will seriously affect your business.
It is emphasized that the reasons for confidence highlight technological advances such as the Stratum V2, in which industrial miners deepen their cheap energy sources and globally distributed searches, and return some control to individual miners to pool operators. In this sense, the role of pool oceans could also be emphasized. It uses its proprietary Datum protocol to provide minor autonomy to the task.
The verification risk calculator remains reflective of Bitcoin’s dynamism. This is a network that, despite its solid foundation, must adapt to the reality of modern mining. The 2025 data confirms that the risks that LOPP presents are not disappearing, but it evolves over time and requests users with a more accurate understanding of security.
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