[darawk]

Yes, totally. And the rest of the community can simply move to a fork with a new hashing algorithm that their hardware doesn't mine. Which is exactly what would happen if they tried anything. And is exactly why they will never try anything.

[freeloop3]

It's a lot more complicated than that. Suppose the miners did go MAD, and refused to accept any txns. How many days, weeks or months before the bitcoin users can decide on and implement a new hash algorithm? And with several other coins looking to take the crown away from bitcoin, how long before it no longer is the defacto entry point into crypto?

Not only that, but if bitcoin dumps its miners as unceremoniously as you describe, it will create a lot of distrust between miners in general and the bitcoin users. I don't know what alternative hashing algorithm you had in mind, but if it becomes mineable by miners of another coin, they may see an opportunity to attack. Without a large community of miners protecting bitcoin, you will have thrown bitcoin to the wolves so to speak. And there is little reason for miners to protect bitcoin against such an attack, after they showed such disregard to the original community of miners.

So, no, miners are not as impotent as you make out.

[darawk]

I partially agree, partially disagree. I think the way it would likely play out is not through committee voting or democracy, but rather through competitors cropping up and people voting with their feet.

If tomorrow the miners started freezing transactions and abusing their power, then 24 hours hence at least 10 new forks of Bitcoin would emerge with different hashing algorithms, all vying for dominance. And the next day another 100 would emerge. Which one would win? I don't know, but it'd likely converge relatively quickly.

Now, is this a bad outcome? Ya, it'd cause some short term disruption. No question about it. However, the miners know they can be routed around. And because they know that, they know they can't abuse their power without risking being cut out of the equation entirely. They are very strongly incentivized not to fuck with the network.

[freeloop3]

You didn't address my argument about alt coins taking over the top spot in such a scenario. When you say converge relatively quickly, relatively to what? How many days, weeks, months are we talking about? In that period of time where no one can spend or buy bitcoin, you don't see some other coin becoming dominant? Why not?