Bitcoin is exploitation resistant

Rai stones were used as money on Yap island in the Pacific ocean. They were big heavy discs that were quarried on another island, and shipped over on bamboo rafts. The massive energy expended in adding new stones to the existing stock on the island ensured stock to flow would remain high — vital for hard money.

This changed when an Irish American explorer found himself shipwrecked on the island, upon being nursed back to health by kind islanders he sought to show his gratitude by bringing over some stones which he realised they treasured so much. In using the considerably less rudimentary sea-faring technology he had access to, he was able to bring over more stones much more efficiently than the islanders had ever thought possible. As a result he inflated their supply and dashed the value of the stones, and the usefulness of the monetary system the islanders might have continued using for centuries.

In a similar vain, small decorative glass beads were used as money in Western Africa. Because glassmaking was almost unknown, the aggry beads became a hard form of currency. When European explorers realised they could have these mass produced back home, they proceeded to flood the market and the beads became worthless. The local people were forced to adopt the colonialists money and submit to their rule.

Bitcoin is a form of money used by a relatively small group of people, up against the might of a powerful belligerent that is the global financial system. So we should ask, can the supply be inflated by forces looking to attack the network?

The governments behind the existing fiat money monopolies, would if they could. But bitcoin has a defence against this attack. The difficulty adjustment algorithm baked into it’s code. This means that a sudden uptick in bitcoin mining operation would trigger an equal uptick in difficulty for those computers to mine blocks. Ensuring issuance remains constant.

There is also a common theory that a government could try to attack bitcoin by achieving more than half of the Bitcoin mining hashrate, and then fork the protocol, this is known as a 51% attack. However due to the maturity of Bitcoin, and its decentralised, state-agnostic nature, this is all but impossible. Such an effort would require a capital and energy expenditure not even the biggest states could attain. And even if they could, they would be incentivised to become willing participants of the network as it is, as they would be enriching themselves with so much wealth if they did so.