I was curious over a year ago and subbed to the reddit (r/bitcoin) and just started reading there even though I didn't under stand half of it or have any plans for investing (or mining). After a while it started making a little sense, it has been interesting to watch the past couple years.
Here are a couple good, more recent (it references 500btc as a small amount), resources on the technology exploit aspect I just read over:
- https://www.coindesk.com/blockchain-immutability-myth/ CTRL+F "bitcoin", I skimmed most of the rest :d
I agree with this one pretty much, the 51% attack is suicide for the blockchain/market so seems illogical. it'd be so expensive to actually get 51% to take over the blockchain, which would immediately collapse. There's more money long term in actually using your 51% to make a shitton of bitcoin on the non-crashed market and sell them. I also believe bitcoin core developers could prevent/fix the majority attack if it were an imminent threat.
More:
- http://www.btcpedia.com/bitcoin-51-attack/
- https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Weaknesses
- https://duckduckgo.com/?q=bitcoin+51%25+attack
I'm sure people attempt daily, people also protect against it. It's a cat mouse game like any technology but there hasn't been any major bugs recently AFAIK.