montaguy

This

This doesn't sound like a real problem.

Nobody is saying that they don't have the capability. The fact that they're stealing bitcoin I think indicates that it's not as profitable for them to start a mining operation.

A lot of things need to line up to make the unit cost of mining bitcoin work.

So say your country produced 5% more goods, and the bitcoin supply increased 1% or even decreased. Production is higher than monetary supply increase.

Seems to me that sure, the cost of investment would rise in this deflationary scenario, but to assume this results in no investment is a foregone conclusion. Wouldn't you just get a new investment vs savings equilibrium? One that may be more aligned with responsible investments and purchases? Why is it a downward spiral? If saving is greater than investment than production wouldn't stay at 5%, it's ostensibly fall, reducing deflation, and making investment more appealing relative to saving.

Doubtless this 'target inflation' debate has raged for the past century. Does anyone have any book recommendations that explore these ideas?

I think you're being too conservative.

I plan to leave if hashrate distribution starts to look too consolidated. If one entity gets close to 51%, the security of the chain is compromised and we move on.

Right now Bitcoin is cool for a whole lot of reasons, discounting it because maybe possibly someday it will fail is silly.

To be clear, at this time no single pool has >50%, and your concern is that a minimum of 6 pools would need to collude to achieve >50% of hashrate. No?

Source: https://blockchain.info/pools