[retrac]

They could rewrite the protocol at-will if a cabal of miners holds a clear majority of the hash power.

If that cabal would require hundreds of groups with no common cause on every continent, then no problem. If it's just a handful of individuals who could make that call, that's a potential problem.

And we just don't know which end of that spectrum the current hash rate distribution actually looks like.

Admittedly, there's no reason a private investor would want to tank their holdings like that I can think of. But, if significant hash rate is being held by state actors as some have suggested, economic warfare comes into the picture.

[throwaway248329]

No, that's literally not how it works. Read the article I linked.

Even if the cabal of miners decided to make a change in the protocol and print themselves bunch of free coins, those mined blocks would get rejected by the full nodes, which compose the Bitcoin network and validate all the transactions.