What Is “Rent-Seeking Behavior” in the Context of PoW Mining?

In PoW mining, rent-seeking behavior refers to miners diverting hashrate away from a highly secure, high-difficulty coin (like Bitcoin) to attack a less secure, low-difficulty coin for immediate, disproportionate profit. The "rent" is the temporary, excess profit gained from exploiting the security vulnerability of the smaller chain.

This behavior is driven by the profit motive and is facilitated by the fungibility of hashrate on rental markets, allowing miners to chase the highest short-term returns.