I would say that too, if i was trying to present an assumption that i could not proof or find evidence for.
Find the missing link.
Please stop trying to deflect statements that are academically self evident by trying to assert that they are "assumptions" or lack "empirical evidence".
The Dash protocol is documented as exposing a proportion of its new supply to competitive mining. The rest is effectively "mined" at zero difficulty.
It therefore follows that various options are available to miners who want to "game" these protocol properties. An quantified example is
given here.