The fact that the distributed blockchain is safe as long as the “unlikely” case of a single entity having more than 50 percent of the hashing power does not come to happen is one of the cornerstones of the Bitcoinsphere. It has both technical and philosophical implications. However, recent events (see article) are questioning this cornerstone.
Indeed I believe there is room for improvement and certainly more technically inclined and informed minds should be at work on them.
The potential vulnerabilities and the inconsistencies that stretch the seams when you go from financially trivial to hugely valuable could be seen from some time, but hopefully will be socialized and dealt with before too much pain comes to pass.
Could the block rewards be more granular (i.e. smaller and more distributed) and adjusting not based on time, but rather based on the growth of the value of the BTC, so as to defeat the advantage of pools?
Could rewards extend to other resource providers, like blockchain storing nodes?
Counting on self-interest of the pools is weak. it’s like counting on the survival instinct of terrorists (like in suicide bombers?) Power need to be distributed, not yielded prudently by anyone.
Quid 