>>60805740
>governments will actively protect the chain for no other reason than they don't want other governments to have more hash power than them.

lol this claim is almost a parody of maximalist cope: it tries to turn Bitcoin's biggest structural weakness, state choke points, into a feature by assuming governments will fall over themselves to subsidize and "protect" the network.

Let's unpack the absurdity, shall we?

First, calling Bitcoin "permissionless" while admitting states can pull the plug on mining farms is already an own-goal. Mining isn't floating in the clouds, it's plugged into power grids, data centers, and ASIC supply chains, all of which are licensed, inspected and sanctioned infrastructure. If governments can choke it then, by definition, it is permissioned at the infrastructure layer.

Second, the "governments will protect Bitcoin" angle is laughable. States don't protect things out of some altruistic balance-of-hashpower theory. They protect what serves their interests. If mining revenues enrich regulated corporations, fine. But if Bitcoin undermines capital controls, facilitates sanctions evasion or destabilizes energy policy those same governments will crush it without hesitation. Expecting sovereign states to engage in a Cold War-style hashrate arms race to "defend" Bitcoin is pure fantasy.

Third, this framing betrays the exact opposite of the "stateless money" dream. If the chain's survival hinges on State power, subsidies and geopolitical rivalries, then Bitcoin isn't a decentralized people's network, it's a ward of nation-states. That's the definition of permissioned consensus: hashpower ultimately at the mercy of sovereigns who decide where energy flows and which ASICs are allowed across borders.

Finally, if your only argument is that governments will compete to keep BTC alive then you've just conceded the ultimate point: its security ultimately depends on geopolitics rather than pure math. And geopolitics is unpredictable as fuck.