… we can rely on incentives to predictably shape future behaviour. As Nick Szabo rightly points out, ultimately we are speculating about people’s future mental states and making assumptions about how they react to certain incentives. A cryptoeconomic system’s security guarantee depends in part on the strength of its assumptions abou…
… like “blockchains are trustless”, “bitcoin is backed only by math” or “blockchains are immutable.” These are all wrong in their own way, but all have the effect of obfuscating the essential role of a large network of people whose necessary participation in the network is maintained through economic incentives.