Why aren't the miners just running away with our coins?
Why aren't the miners just running away with our coins? You own a very valuable thing and you want to go to holiday without it, but there is nobody who you trust and who can look after the thing. So you take somebody unknown to guard it. You pay him a fee hoping he doesn't run away with the valuable think. How much would you pay? I think you should pay minimum the value of the fee! But now to bitcoin. Do the story again: You own a very valuable coin which is guarded by somebody unknown (the miners). You pay him a fee (mining profit) that is much less than the value of the coin (market cap of bitcoin). Why is there any hope that he doesn't run away with the coins or more formal why don't the miners hold short positions on the coin, bring value of the coin down with a large majority attack which destroys any trust in the coin and run away with benefit from the destruction? I asked this fundamental question about bitcoin in a stricter way 2 days before in this question ...