Can the 51% attack be made to become 81% attack or 91% attack? Since the 51% attack happens if there are more than 50% of nodes that fake the data on the blockchain, can it be actually 81% or 91% that is needed to fake the data, because it would be much harder if more than 80% of the nodes are &quot;bad guys&quot;.
So what I mean is, can it be the case that even 79% cannot be an attack, but need to be a higher number, such as 81% or 91%.
It may appear if the verification of data can reach a 50% level, reaching out to 1 more node of those 50% can make it become 80% to 100% easily, so one extra step is all it takes?
The 51 percent attack isn't necessarily &quot;faking the data&quot;. It is generally referred to say including a double spend in a block that would normally be rejected by the network but the honest part of the network struggles to reject that block and the chain built on top of it because it has a minority of hashpower. The point being that proof of work is still completed, it isn't &quot;faked&quot;. But in answer to your question, of course a 81 percent attack or 91 percent attack would be even more concerning than a 51 percent attack. It is called 51 percent because that is the minimum needed to pull off the attack.
There is nothing that can be done to increase the minimum of 51 percent needed to pull off the attack to say 81 percent in a proof of work context, it is the nature of the system. Of course, in reality the network may choose to follow the chain with reduced proof of work but without the double spend transaction in it. It would be disruptive, extremely expensive for the attacker and could (likely) fail.