I was just looking at the bitcoin difficulty chart and realized how small this network really is despite the extreme difficulty increases over the last 2 years.  Lets get to it:

1) Currently difficulty is at ~10,000 TH
2) Single 1 TH mining box cost ~$1000 to manufacture (reality is much less than 1k, but for easy calculation lets use $1k)
3) To destroy the bitcoin network you need to control 51% of the network.
4) To bring 10,000 TH (assume evildoer wants to be thorough) online it will cost:  10,000 * $1000 = $10million,  add on another $10millon for R&D,  $20million total.
5) Goldman saches makes ~$30million a day in NET revenue (same with most other banks)
6) It will cost a SINGLE bank HALF day's net revenue to wipe bitcoin out - less than their office supply budget.

We are just an ant...not even ant, a microscopic organism in the financial world.  If bitcoin becomes too big or start hurting those bank's bottomline (transaction fees), all they need to do is sneeze and bitcoin is gone. And there is no regulation/anti-competitive laws to protect bitcoin, it is completely de-regulated at this point.

Heck it doesnt even have to be the banks, even a small hedge fund or single person with some cash can wipe out bitcoin in a single instance.

The other ironic thing is the market cap of bitcoin is around $12billion right now compared to the $20million to destroy it. It shows how far removed from reality everything is, i dont think people really thought this through. If bitcoin can be shorted, someone can just short it, then destroy the network for riskfree win.

The difficulty needs to increase by 1000X at the minimum ($10 billion) to provide some bare minimum security to bitcoin's network

Dont agree with what I said about the current state of bitcoin? then provide your reasons, i love to be proven wrong. But just cant find a fault in my numbers.