What kind of incentive does the attacker have to just harm a community of a distributed system?

Association with or interest in a different (crypto or not) currency, leading to wanting to shake faith in the target currency.

Hostility toward a community in which the target currency is particularly popular.

“Some men just want to watch the world burn.”

Concern over the impact Bitcoin has on global energy use?

If you had a strong interest in Ethereum (for example), then I think you’d want to avoid the wholesale destruction of Bitcoin. If the biggest crypto currency fails, it’ll probably send shockwaves through out the entire crypto currency market.

Mind you, I say this as a crypto currency outsider.

> If you had a strong interest in Ethereum (for example), then I think you’d want to avoid the wholesale destruction of Bitcoin. If the biggest crypto currency fails, it’ll probably send shockwaves through out the entire crypto currency market.

That's true as long as cryptocurrency itself is seen as fringe; it's less true if cryptocurrency becomes generally accepted.

Of course, a nation-state or other actor interested in preserving the role of fiat and keeping cryptocurrency on the fringes is also a possibility.

How about environmentalism?

Pure carnage? Blackhats are real.

An interest in a competing financial system.

Just to say they did it.

Money? Tax is a pretty good motivator for governments.

Making GPU prices great again

Trolling, because the internetz.