Briefing
A foundational challenge in cryptoeconomics is the long-term stability of incentive structures, a problem this paper addresses by demonstrating that protocol mutability ∞ the ability to change core rules ∞ destabilizes the entire economic environment. The core breakthrough is the formal integration of Austrian capital theory and game theory to model miner behavior, showing that institutional instability elevates the economic concept of time preference , transforming rational, long-term capital investment into opportunistic rent-seeking. Protocol immutability functions as a synthetic constitutional constraint, anchoring economic expectations and sustaining the intertemporal capital structure necessary for a decentralized system to function as a viable, investment-grade infrastructure.
Context
The established theoretical models for analyzing blockchain security and miner behavior often simplify strategic action into a static optimization problem over immediate rewards. This prevailing view neglects the critical role of institutional calculability, which is the economic confidence required for long-term capital-intensive production. The foundational problem is the failure to account for how a protocol’s governance mechanism ∞ specifically, its capacity for rule change ∞ shapes the temporal structure of economic decisions, leaving the system vulnerable to meta-strategic manipulation by coordinated, socially influential actors.
Analysis
The paper introduces a game-theoretic framework where the protocol’s rule-set is treated as a binding economic institution. The core mechanism is the concept of protocol immutability acting as a synthetic constitutional constraint. When rules are mutable, the risk of future, adverse rule changes increases the agents’ time preference ∞ their preference for immediate rewards over deferred payoffs.
This elevated time preference destabilizes cooperative equilibria and incentivizes participants to engage in opportunistic rent-seeking and meta-strategic manipulation, such as lobbying for protocol changes that benefit them. By contrast, a fixed, immutable protocol anchors long-term expectations, lowers time preference, and restores economic calculability, shifting strategic action toward productive, capital-intensive investment in the network’s security, aligning individual rational action with the system’s long-term stability.
Parameters
- Institutional Instability Metric ∞ Protocol mutability is shown to elevate the economic time preference, transforming entrepreneurial action into opportunistic rent-seeking.
- Equilibrium Shift ∞ Mutable rules destabilize the cooperative equilibrium, incentivizing strategic manipulation over productive investment.
- Foundational Logic ∞ Protocol fixity is necessary for economic coherence and viability as investment-grade infrastructure.
Outlook
This research opens a critical new avenue for cryptoeconomic mechanism design, moving the focus from purely technical consensus to institutional stability. The immediate application lies in formally justifying protocol design choices that prioritize fixity and simplicity over discretionary complexity, providing a rigorous economic argument against soft-fork governance capture. Over the next three to five years, this theory will likely inform the design of next-generation decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) and Layer 1 protocols, demanding that governance models be formally proven to resist endogenous time preference elevation to ensure long-term capital formation and network security.
