OK so let it be about quantum computers.
Let's assume that a fellowship of banks want to destroy Bitcoin.
They buy computing power from a couple supercomputers and make, in a single 2 weeks session, jump the difficulty to the stars, so that mining becomes highly unprofitable, so pushing miners away from the business.
They would hold this status until they see most if not all left the mining business, then drop the renting of supercomputing power.
Is this a possible scenario?
Based upon the number and type of questions you're asking, my guess is you haven't done a lot of personal research about Bitcoin.
First, despite what anyone is telling you on this forum, *nobody* here knows what the true state of quantum computing is like. It's been asserted in this thread that quantum computing is nowhere near the point where we can crack SHA-256 with it. This is almost assuredly true given that there is no known instance of quantum computers wreaking utter havoc on everything. I'm pretty certain that if such an advanced computer existed, someone somewhere would have blown something up with it a long time ago. But, when you go off talking about supercomputers, this is different than a quantum computer. Currently, even an entire cluster of supercomputers wouldn't push the difficulty very high -- the network is currently *far* more powerful.
Second, if that's the best plan you think a bank could come up with, let me tell you something -- it sucks and is somewhat laughable. As I just alluded to, supercomputers would definitely not be the way to go here. Forcing some type of scenario where the profitability of mining drops to zero or becomes negative is somewhat pointless if all you're trying to do is stop people from mining. Mining will always move towards an equilibrium between cost and benefits -- if difficulty increases to a point that threatens profitability, miners will drop out, and when the difficulty goes back down after they drop out, you'll see miners jumping back on board.
Third, even if you did have a quantum computer that was powerful enough to crack SHA-256, then believe me when I say there are a *lot* more profitable targets than Bitcoin.
Fourth, what would it matter if they "drop the rent of supercomputing power?" Aside from the fact that I mentioned earlier that supercomputers are little wimps compared to the Bitcoin network, how would making hashing power more affordable threaten the network?
Currently, as I see it, the easiest way for a large entity to kill Bitcoin would simply be to buy enough ASICs to gain a majority share of the network hashrate so they can control it at will (or just buy and sell a large, random number of BTC every day to make it intolerably volatile for an indefinite period, but let's forget about that one for now). A few billion dollars ought to be enough. But then the question comes -- "WHY?"
Why spend a few billion (which, even for a bank, is a sizable amount of money) to kill a market that's only worth a few billion in the first place? All this likely means is that one bank is now out a few billion dollars and are thus economically weaker compared to their competitors (i.e. other banks) who never spent even a penny. Is a bank really going to sacrifice market share to its competitors based upon some *potential* treat? Now, if the market cap of Bitcoin was tens or hundreds of billion dollars, this would imply that the network hashrate is many times greater, and now it becomes difficult for even a bank to scrounge up enough money to purchase the hardware required to gain a majority share of the network.
TL;DR: Bitcoin has natural incentives built into it's core model that dissuade people from attacking it.
Great post, thank you
As for the WHY question, in this YOU may have to think a bit better.
For the same reason we think Bitcoin will waste banks, banks will one day understand what's happening and WILL probably take any measure to blast it off.
Besides, bilderberg are an interesting club, rotschild is an extremely rich family... if these organizations decide to take action against something that is mining (!!!) their grounds for billions of dollars, they will be glad to spend billions of dollars to protect their markets.
