title_body: How would a 51% Attack on the Cardano blockchain be started and overcome? What exactly is the 51% Attack?
  
  How hard would it be to accomplish this attack?
  
  How easy is it to overcome the attack should it actually occur?
upvoted_answer: The 51% attack is used by an attacker to take over the blockchain. Usually, the community of a blockchain has to reach consensus, which means that once someone mints a new block, other nodes validate it. The majority has to agree that the new block is valid and thus the blockchain has grown one block. All other nodes accept the new block and all it's content (transactions) as valid and &quot;follow&quot; it, as in using is as a starting point to calculate the next block.
  For a proof of work blockchain like Bitcoin, this would mean to have more hashing power than anyone else on the blockchain. This would even allow to you overwrite existing blocks. To regain control, the &quot;honest minority&quot; had to increase their hashing power.
  For a proof of stake blockchain like cardano, an attacker would require more than half of all staked ada. An attacker would have to buy 22.5 billion ada of the currently circulating supply of ~33bn ada or control enough pools to which this amount of ada had to be delegated to. Buying ada would drive the price up, depending on how fast he wants to buy and how much he agrees to pay per ada and would be very difficult, same goes for running enough pools that attract enough delegators as well.
  The attacker could then dictate the content of the minted blocks. To regain control in a scenario where the adversary bought the ada, the &quot;honest minority&quot; would have to buy his coins, which the attacker would have to agree to. In theory, this could be very difficult. However, it is almost impossible for an attacker to obtain that many ada in the first place.
  If the attacker controls enough pools thus has enough control over more than half of all staked ada, the honest owners of the coins could simply switch to honest pools.
  As for all 51%: with a growing number of honest users participating in a healthy network, an attacker will have a harder time to take it over, until it becomes basically impossible.