Bitcoin Forum

Theoretically speaking of course...for example, the appointing of a new president, a massive war, something in the economic and financial technology sector etc.

A catastrophic event for Bitcoin would be the cracking of SHA-256 or the discovery of a major flaw in Bitcoin's code. Another event that could make people dump a lot would be the hacking of a major exchange such as Polo and Bittrex.

51% attack maybe? if they fork for bu and attack the other network which is the network that any exchange will run as the main Bitcoin, it can do some damage and make the value decrease a lot, i'm not sure how investors would feel or do about this, some of them maybe will buy again cheap coin thinking about abother possible increase? investors are greedy it's very hard to get rid of them lol

Yeah, exchange issue may be the negative impact on bitcoin.

"catastrophic event"? Don't know if it would be considered "catastrophic", but given the state of the block size debate, a hard fork is a possibility as the sides take it to the next level with an all out war. That would bring about chaos and the price would drop way down and probably stay down for awhile.

Reasons for biggest market drops are always fear.  Dow Jones fall most when Russians launched Sputnik, first satellite. Shareholders were feared of what it is and of USSR technologically and economic dominance.

Bitcoin's lack of fungibility could bring it down I think.

The government could declare that certain Bitcoin that had traveled through addresses known to be used for ransoms/drug deals/terrorism was forfeit. Of course there would be no way to actually seize said Bitcoin, but this would keep that Bitcoin off the exchanges, destroying its value. Then everyone would need to worry about which Bitcoin was tainted which I think would destroy it.

This is already happening to an extent. Coinbase is closing accounts that contain tainted Bitcoin.

Reveal of an NSA intelligence program tracking and keeping database of all Bitcoin users,
or huge busts on the darknet market by the DEA would slow down illegal drug purchase with Bitcoin.

Something like that would slow demand and probably see a drop in price for a while and stop growth since new users would be apprehensive about getting into crypto.

Also if China actually started cracking down on exchanges or miners it could have serious effects, since they have so much of the hashing power.
Bitcoin definitely needs more decentralization.

President Mike Pence (before October) doesn't qualify as a catastrophic event. If anything most of the world will consider that stabilizing.

I'll agree with andrew2k.

Hacking might be one, Technical problems maybe

Yes, I think so, if all the hackers have received and collected Bitcoin may be affected by the decline of Bitcoin, so for that we all have to be careful in keeping the Bitcoin we have.

I agree with the cracking of the SHA-256, the Bitcoin would fall. I also think it would fall if it faces a ban in many countries, because people will fear, and won't be using it anymore, hence, the drop.

Please note that this was simply an example!!!!!!

Fees spiking in the double digit $ amount for the average transaction. It will put bitcoin out of reach for the majority of its current userbase.

I think that would be creation of coin that can beat bitcoin in popularity and usage.  People taking interest on that coin and panic selling bitcoin to get fund so that they can ride the train of that new coins.  Other than that aside from cracking sha256, I cannot see any other else that will bring catastrophy to bitcoin.

Hacking of all major exchanges where BTC gets compromised followed by a massive dump.

I think the one event that would kill bitcoin would be the internet being shut off or the power grids going down, as unlikely as they are to happen I think these would signal the end of bitcoin.

A massive war could result in the internet going down which if that happened long term would adversely affect the price of bitcoin. Bit if that happens bitcoin wont be our main concern. So diversiy a little in to gold coins as well.

War is always a threat to the growth of the economy. This is not for a particular country, but the impact can be felt all around. As a part some cyber attack too might can cause a great problem to the bitcoin network as everything is dependent on internet.

Allowing people to spend bitcoins with low fees.

Users losing their trust in bitcoin as reliable and viable currency because of the unresolved backlog issue and the kindergarten shown by the operators (be it miners, core developers, who cares?).

This is by no means theoretical, it's happening right now. Very likely, it's irreversible as well.

I don`t think that era of bitcoin will end with catastrophe at all. Only thing that can end bitcoin in this faze is some new and much better developed technology. Shutting down electricity or internet is impossible, we are going into new era, and while some parts of the world will stay on stone age, elite will have everything available.
Only real fear is from new technology, I made a little research about quantum technologies and I think when that comes we can say goodbye to bitcoin and many other things that we use now, but who knows when will that happen.

we're slowly running out of catastrophes other than technical ones. it's becoming more legit by the day worldwide. china's dead and if it does come back it'll be a meek zombie.

i'd say right now poloniex failing and some type of disaster when attempting to scale, either no scaling or the process screwing up.



if people are losing their trust then why are they paying so much in fees? i agree that it can't continue forever like this but it's a sign that usage isn't falling away.

When the price of BTC rises, it pulls the value of other altcoins up with it. Hopefully BTC's value never declines. Given the state of the world economy with the united states burying itself beneath $20 trillion in debt, its possible the rise of BTC will continue as countries which adopted the us dollar as a reserve currency seek to further de-dollarize and unpeg their respective economies from what in the future could be a crashing hyperinflating dollar.

If anything, probably the most catastrophic collapse of the value would be a global, brutal crackdown on Bitcoin users. That would make the community vanish pretty quickly.

Other than that, something more realistic would likely be the cryptography being broken and all the security built into Bitcoin being made worthless, which is part of why Bitcoin is respected as a currency. A new president (under most circumstances) would boost Bitcoin, same for a war that doesn't destroy global telecommunications infrastructure.

Not a catastrophe, more like a bump in the road. And it is reversible.