If they seriously damage the trust in Bitcoin they lower the profits for future mining
and also lower the value of their infrastructure and their hardware.
One would think this is one of the key reasons that theyre unlikely to short the token and attack, unlike proof-of-stake. However, the miners concoct all sorts of drama (e.g. block size forks) in order to drive the prices down and up like a yoyo, because they profit on the swings in price and they mine multiple tokens and arbitrage between them. Also the lowest cost miners can use price swings to squeeze the marginal miners. The capitalists who own the 12/14nm ASIC foundaries decide who gets the most efficient ASICs first.
The mining cartel doesn't want to outright double-spend or break the protocol yet, because they're still nurturing
this 666 system theyre hoisting on us. Yet I am not in some fantasyland dream where I think they're not manipulating on both the down and upside.
Sorry for the depressing thoughts. I like realism, not fantasies.