Let's have a real example: it's April 2028 and miners collectively decide not to enforce the next halving. How does that play out in practice?
They won’t go with a blatantly obvious attack vector like simply cancelling the halving. The attack, whatever shape or form it takes, will be subversive and designed to split the community. The groundwork is already being laid.
OP_RETURN opens the door to Simplicity. Simplicity opens the door to smart contracts and “programmable money.” Programmable money creates a natural path for stablecoins to become a major use case on Bitcoin. Each step may look reasonable in isolation, but collectively they dilute Bitcoin’s monetary premium and put downward pressure on its fiat price.
That only needs to persist through one prolonged bear market to create serious pain for miners. Once miners are under pressure, they start negotiating for changes to the security budget. Security-budget FUD becomes normalised, and that’s where demurrage enters the Overton window.
First it’s a “small enough” demurrage or tail emission. Then it’s framed as a pragmatic measure to protect Bitcoin’s security. Eventually, the argument becomes: “The free market has spoken.” A MASF is drafted, the community tears itself apart over it, and after enough infighting, the so-called “economic majority” is declared to have spoken in favour of doing what is supposedly best for Bitcoin.
That’s how these attacks work - through a sequence of seemingly reasonable concessions that gradually move the Overton window. It’s a slippery slope, and the uncomfortable question is whether you actually have a credible defence against that progression. TL;DR: you didn’t.
OP_RETURN opens the door to Simplicity. Simplicity opens the door to smart contracts and “programmable money.” Programmable money creates a natural path for stablecoins to become a major use case on Bitcoin. Each step may look reasonable in isolation, but collectively they dilute Bitcoin’s monetary premium and put downward pressure on its fiat price.
That only needs to persist through one prolonged bear market to create serious pain for miners. Once miners are under pressure, they start negotiating for changes to the security budget. Security-budget FUD becomes normalised, and that’s where demurrage enters the Overton window.
First it’s a “small enough” demurrage or tail emission. Then it’s framed as a pragmatic measure to protect Bitcoin’s security. Eventually, the argument becomes: “The free market has spoken.” A MASF is drafted, the community tears itself apart over it, and after enough infighting, the so-called “economic majority” is declared to have spoken in favour of doing what is supposedly best for Bitcoin.
That’s how these attacks work - through a sequence of seemingly reasonable concessions that gradually move the Overton window. It’s a slippery slope, and the uncomfortable question is whether you actually have a credible defence against that progression. TL;DR: you didn’t.
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