I believe Bitcoin already has everything required to handle this situation by having players who benefit from high network speeds automatically create and broadcast network assurance contracts:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.785122I think this correctly solves the problem by allowing co-operation amongst competing players to fund network security in such a way that one player doesn't end up carrying the rest.
I don't forsee a mining monopoly or a failure due to game theory any time in the forseeable future.
I want to make sure I understand, is this right: ?
Anyone with an interest in a high hash rate (basically, anyone holding a large amount of coins), can initiate or cooperate on SIGHASH_ANYONECANPAY transactions. Those are an effective way for people to say stuff "I pledge 10 BTC for the next miner to mine a block, provided 100 total BTC is donated in this transaction ... otherwise, I'll get my money back in 5 blocks"?
So, if people or organizations holding a large amount of BTC see that the security is too low for their standard, they can chip in ... provided others do so as well.
One question: If a miner decides to contribute the reamaining 90 BTC just to collect the 100 BTC reward ... I assume he can't do it on the block that mines the ANYONECANPAY tx, right? So, such a miner would have to contribute his 90 BTC some time before the target block number, and the transaction will only be readamable in that target block number, and not before? In this case, the miner will not be able to exploit this and "steal" the 10 BTC.
This is interesting.