Even if some blocks broke off to a new chain because a miner got lucky with 20-30% of the mining computing power, the chain can recover. I still don't see how any one entity could pull off 20-30% mining power, but I don't have a ton of knowledge on this.

amj101 was talking about a 51% attack, as opposed to a fork. A 51% attack means new blocks with new rules are added to the old chain.

Any one entity probably couldn't pull off a 51% attack, but miners are engaged in a global arms race to increase hash rate faster than the next guy. Back in the day, you could mine on your desktop. As the hash rate increased, it required a dedicated GPU, then multiple GPUs, and now it requires enormous farms with dedicated power purchase contracts. And every time the price drops in a meaningful way, the weak hands get shaken out and mining power continues to get concentrated into fewer and fewer entities.

As the block rewards decrease, is it plausible that a small number of big players will find it in their collective best interests to increase the block rewards? You betcha.

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