Profit possibility for colluding with 51% attacker The Bitcoin Wiki states "A profit-seeking person will always gain more by just following the rules, and even someone trying to destroy the system will probably find other attacks more attractive."

I'm always (!) wary when people claim "always" or "never". Similarly I challenge the above statement, that seems quicker to try to reassure than to really analyze the validity of "always" in the context of being a good/bad actor.

What about the situation whereby some entity builds up a hugely leveraged short BTC position. e.g. say two nations took a HUGE bet each on opposite sides of the bitcoin price. Then the nation on the short side could secretly collude with a 51% miner to destroy the network and profit from the resulting BTC crash, kicking back to the miner a slice of the winnings.

Possible? Impossible?
The Bitcoin Wiki states "A profit-seeking person will always gain more by just following the rules, and even someone trying to destroy the system will probably find other attacks more attractive."


The statement from the wiki has since been proven false. If a pool has a large enough percentage of the mining power, then it can follow 'selfish mining' procedures to earn more than it's fair share of the block rewards. This was introduced in this paper: http://arxiv.org/abs/1311.0243.

That is one reason your doubt in the wiki's claim is justified. The reason you cite, the two nations taking a bet on the price of a BTC, may be another possible case, but it doesn't seem very realistic to me. I'm not sure why any nation would take part in such a bet, and I think there would probably be more cost effective ways to lower the price of a BTC rather than engaging in a 51% attack.