> What if a cartel were able to double spend one (or multiple) of the big 40 "whale" Bitcoin accounts before destroying the entire network? I don't think 51% a

> What if a cartel were able to double spend one (or multiple) of the big 40 "whale" Bitcoin accounts before destroying the entire network? I don't think 51% attacks work that way. You can't spend at all without the private keys of the whales because the network nodes won't trust the chain. If they have enough power, they can double spend their own coins by rewinding the history till the point they are spent. This is why around 6 blocks time is considered as a must to prevent double spends. In fact as the price increases the lost opportunity cost also increases (they could have just mined and gotten the reward instead of attacking). How ever, there are still players out of the net currently who don't care about the rewards and have enough hash power (governments). It's just that at this point of time they are ambivalent to the little monster that is growing up before their eyes (like a cute little dinosaur).