Scenario A: A State actor, by way of the money printer, prints infinite amounts of fiat, and uses it to pay mining pools to exclusively mine empty blocks.
Block space available for economic bitcoin transactions evaporates, and for many, bitcoin becomes unusable.
Scenario B: A State actor, by way of the money printer, prints infinite amounts of fiat, and uses it to pay mining pools to fill blocks full of jpegs…
In terms of functional outcome, what is the difference between these two scenarios?
Assuming scenario B occurs to the same extent as scenario A (I don't believe it has... yet.), there is no difference. This type of attack seems plausible, but are there reasons it would not be feasible/likely? However, should it occur, is there a defense against this attack that does not rely on miners making a financial sacrifice? I'm afraid that defense will not be sufficient.
Giving individual miners the ability to construct their own block templates will go a long way.
This is the goal of Stratum V2.
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