Bitcoin Forum

What set of conditions (technical or socio-economic) can crash blockchain or bitcoin to zero USD? Is this notion of bitcoin crashing inconceivable at this point 10 years into its existence (so long as there is electricity and the internet)? My corollary question is: Can bitcoin be obsoleted by another cryptocurrency? What would that path of obsoletion look like for bitcoin? For example, I hear about other crypto currencies like Etherium or Lightcoin or Bitcash or Altcoin or Bitgold. What would be signs to look for that would make it prudent to cash out of Bitcoin to buy Etherium, for example.

Nuclear war or other similar-scale disaster that results in destruction of the Internet is the only scenario when Bitcoin can literally crash to zero. Other scenarios can lead to Bitcoin's price tanking significantly, but Bitcoin would still exist, even in your example of some superior cryptocurrency Bitcoin will still be used and as the result have value.

Now, about a better cryptocurrency - it should be fundamentally overall better than Bitcoin to dethrone it - so far various shitcoins say that having faster/bigger blocks makes them better than Bitcoin, but that's a lie aimed at people who don't understand the basics of cryptocurrency technology. If you don't educate yourself, you will not be able to truly tell if a coin is better than Bitcoin or not, so you will leave yourself vulnerable to all these scammers with their marketing teams who try their best to sell shitcoins.

Sending civilization back to the Stone Age would be the answer you're looking for. Not that I'm implying that bitcoin is too big to fail, it's just that as of right now, that's the only thing we could think of that could render bitcoin worthless.

Even if a brute-forcing method was introduced the next day, an immediate patch would be dispersed immediately in order to salvage the situation. Quantum computing as well isn't that of a threat either. A new and better version of bitcoin could oust bitcoin as the top dog for value but BTC would still have its value anywhere.

Now if we're forced to use things at hand and our tech is useless, say, on an event of a global pandemic, an upcoming extinction-level event or any other catastrophic disasters there are, do you think people will still bother tending at their bitcoins, let alone money if there are far more important things than money? I think not.

The most important thing to bitcoin is the internet. At the very worst, If the internet got shut out allover the globe.
1. The nodes wouldn't be able to run/communicate
2. Mining would be impossible
3. Transactions would not be possible
4. The value/demand would consequently drop to Zero as people wouldn't be interested in buying something that doesn't work
5. The End

Well, first of all blockchain itself doesn't have a value. This is simply the technology that is used as the data structure of modern cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum and most other crypto assets.

Bitcoin, on the other hand, could be crashed to zero. In order to achieve this, it would need to have either zero liquidity due to being dropped from every single exchange platform, including decentralized ones, and it would need to be untransferrable without these platforms.

In order to achieve this, it would need to be both compromised on a cryptographic scale, and banned from a regulatory standpoint. Only then, would its utility value drop to zero and become worthless.

Though even then, there are still likely to be collectors that would pay for private keys, which could help it maintain some nominal value.

I think the only thing that can bring down Bitcoin at this point is if everyone abandons Bitcoin for a better cryptocurrency that has faster transactions and lower fees.  I don't think this will happen, but to me it's the only way that Bitcoin could fail at this point.

Only it happens with the earth will collapse and nobody is alive...that sounds ridiculous.

I'd find no reason that Bitcoin would have to collapse. It is in the fact that Bitcoin is considered to be the new and most demand technology in the future. We are already been living into the new era and somewhat as fiat money will soon be obsolete and that makes cryptocurrency dumb to have an important role someday.

Yes but in the near future we wont be reliant on the internet as we know it now!

Take SpaceX's Starlink project which from the opening text from the Starlink website states "
SpaceX is leveraging its experience in building rockets and spacecraft to deploy the world's most advanced broadband internet system."

https://www.starlink.com

The world in regards to Communication, FInance, Trade and Navigation etc. is too reliant on the Internet it simply is not going to end.

The only thing I can see ending Bitcoin is a Hack and lockdown or lockout [I dont know how that would happen or if it is possible, but in my imagination this seems quite dramatic!]

Blockchain and Bitcoin is different. Any coins we can consider crypto are using blockchain. What could be the reason why someone would want to crash BTC to zero, thats full scale hatred  ;D

I don't think there is some condition that can crash BTC to zero unless there will be no internet at all which the world's economy also rely to it. That is nearly impossible to happen.

Fundamental flaw that could not be fixed. If it could be fixed I am sure the change would be forked into protocol, but if it could not get fixed, then would go close to zero. Not to zero, since there would be still some lunatics believe in Bitcoin. For some is like a religion.

The chances of the internet being shut-off around the world is pretty much impossible. Internet is sort of decentralized, one country can shut it down but not the entire planet. Making mining impossible is also "impossible" because its highly unlikely for electricity to be shut down everywhere on the planet. People need electricity to survive. Plus there are other ways of generating electricity like diesel generators.

I think the only way how BTC might go to $0 or close is if there is some quantum computer released which can solve private keys or some fault found in ECDSA encryption method. Basically its what is used to secure a BTC address with a public key using a private key.

Who knows, maybe Satoshi sending all his BTC to an exchange can cause it to crash also. All 1 million worth, not enough buy orders out there to absorb that in such a small time-frame.

Cut off the internet, which is really close to zero chances of it happening. Hell, if it did happen, I'd expect the majority of the population dead, with only a close to less than 1% of the population still remaining, and that's already me looking at it quite positively. Also, even if let's say that the market of BTC sucked, much so that the price continuously decreased everyday, as long as someone is holding it, I doubt it could reach zero USD. It would only approach that number, but never reach it.

Is there any lightcoin in the market cryptocurrency? Please tell me where is it.

Seem like you are an altcoin fan, aren't you? But I'll tell you bitcoin will never be obsoleted, even altcoin itself will be obsoleted because in the future we will see many investor comes just invest on bitcoin.

Also, I remain firm that something who will make bitcoin and cryptocurrency as whole dissapeared is only through internet also electricity as has mentioned above. Without those things bitcoin will never be used anymore.

How can an Alpha cryptocurrency become obsolete because it was taken over by another cryptocurrency or altcoin? Basically, majority of alts prices in the market are are paired or based with Bitcoin. Now, I can't think of any possible reason why Bitcoin will become obsolete.

On the other hand, the question by the OP has already been discussed before  :

 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5119335.0  (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5119335.0)

 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5184138.0   (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5184138.0)

   https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2614154.0  (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2614154.0)

There are actually more discussions related to your question if you know how to navigate and use the search button.

Very simple, just need we go back to before 2009. At that time the whole market did not exist and Bitcoin did not have any value. In addition, the end of the world can cause this market to collapse and not be able to develop as it is now. But I want to ask you, why are you asking silly questions like this. You do not want this market to grow and help more people get profit from this market?

I think condition where people wouldn't think anymore about internet. Because if only lost belief from people i think there are still a lot of bitcoin supporter which still use it and it still created value. Maybe something that really bad happen in a lot of countries which make internet not accessible.

It's extremely hard to imagine such a scenario.

The worst case scenario would be some sort of catastrophic network failure occurring alongside a complete global ban on BTC. Even then, I think that there would still be a certain degree of demand for BTC when it comes to both sentimental value in terms of collectors (much like the physical coin collectors now), and people who believe that these problems will be addressed in the future.

To address your second question, it could be possible, but extremely unlikely, that any other crypto will overtake BTC in the foreseeable future. Even if one does, it would not render BTC obsolete.

I can appreciate your line of questioning. I think many, most or all of us have had to ask theses questions in our early discovery of BTC. Rightfully so, Bitcoin is not like any currency or tech we've ever experienced and anyone investing will want to know that their investment is on reasonably solid ground.  
Learning why Bitcoin is immutable & censorship resistant is the key to answering your question for yourself. Sure, everyone can give their conclusions on how it could happen, war etc. Because Bitcoin is a relatively new concept and a new proposal to value, scarcity and money in general, it requires each of us who questions it to rethink, re-learn and discover the hard fundamental values of this new digital money. It's not exactly something most people simply 'get' in their first attempts but with perseverance and decent teachers it's easier to jump into the Bitcoin rabbit hole.  
Nobody wants to miss this train but because so few are willing to understand money and value, most will miss it no less. Redefining money will take time, we are still so early.
May I suggest starting with Andreas Antonopoulos if you're not already familiar.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJWCJCWOxBYSi5DhCieLOLQ


 

I think it's too much and it's hard to imagine. and there are certainly many possibilities that can make bitcoin zero.
blockchain value may not be zero because this is modern technology, so it cannot be measured by value.
bitcoin can be zero if;
- the whole internet is dead (all satellites are broken)
- war throughout the world
- bitcoin prices bounce too high then no one will be able to buy it and no one will trade it because there is too much risk of bubbles bursting.

If the world war were to happen I think Bitcoin and this whole market would go up crazy,  do you remember the war between the United States and Iran in early 2020? it has helped this market go up like it is now, and in addition, if the price of bitcoin goes up, then everyone's demand will increase and they will keep it like gold. The only way for this market to collapse is that bitcoin has become a scam, but it certainly will never happen

Tons of sh*t

-Time travelling and the assassination of satoshi
-Armageddon
-Explosion of every PC
-Human extinction
-The USD not existing anymore


Don't hold on to your BTC as much very likely things are waiting

If electricity will perish off the earth, if the internet will be gone, if there will be no more miners, if there are no more interested of the coin itself; these are the conditions that would put Bitcoin or blockchain into a thing of the past. Which are all, for me, not going to happen.

I summarize from all my friends in this thread, it looks like it will not stop as long as there is internet and technology is always developing to handle any case in the future, I think only the apocalypse is destroying bitcoin and blockchain because governments with superpowers can't stop Bitcoin let alone technology blockchain, they are increasingly developing and developing in almost all countries

don't ever try to stop it because it's not easy, friend  ;D

Blow up the world mate. Like seriously. The chances are close to impossible, but it doesn't mean that it is. Just that the reason for it happening cannot be imagined, with how the world is developed as of today. Probably. But the major cause would be those affected by the war themselves. BTC spiked when Iran and US tensions were high most probably because of how the economy of Iran is so underdeveloped that a war that might happen might make their current currency completely dead. Buying BTC on the other hand, would make sure they have the avenue to retreat somewhere safe.

No more, no less. These concludes all as bitcoin is highly and totally dependent in the internent itself. So if ever there will be total shutdown of the internet the it is more likely the end for bitcoin era. No more send and received of datas around, but it is close to being impossible right now as we continue to progress, more developments will occur rather than shutting down. Such situation makes me wonder, what would the world looks like if internet doesn't exist anymore though.

The scenario that can make bitcoin crash is when the internet and electricity on this earth are destroyed which we will not see that thing happening in the near future ( I hope so). Because basically you need electricity when transacting with bitcoin, miners also need electricity so that your transactions on the blockchain can be verified by them, the internet needs electricity too, the point is electricity.

I have always wondered if a technical error could ever do it. I know it looks like blockchain is solid and there has been no wrong doings aside from occasional double spending as far as we know it and even double spending hurts the shop and not bitcoin in general.

However, if one day someone finds a way to just print out bitcoin out of thin air somehow, which I know sounds impossible to you right now but this is technology we are talking about and maybe someone is that good of a hacker, I don't know if it will ever be possible. Or maybe someone being able to create "computer" so strong it could hack into anyone's wallets. These things look impossible and for all counts and purposes IS impossible but I am %100 sure if it that ever happened, price of bitcoin would plummet faster than a meteroid.

Yes that has been done before!..

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Value_overflow_incident

And extra 184,467,440,737.09551616 BTC that is 184 billion BTC

lol seriuosly time travelling  ?  i can believe on others but time travelling is i think only a myth  . .no matter how advance the technology is , i stil didnt think that time travelling is possible because that can mess up peoples life and everything  . usd extinction is also i find interisting  , why would extinct ? bcause of cryptos domination or only for any other reason ,but there are many currency not just usd  or they can always print another one similar to usd  .

Cutting the internet forever is enough to crash blockhain. Without internet, most of technology will be useless but of course cutting the internet has 0% chance of happening. Rich countries will always fine a way to keep it alive. I don't know what came to op's mind and think of such impossible thing to happen within this era. We are in 2020, and I guess it's safe to say that blockchain technology will remain it's existence even in the near future.

The reason which will lead to the crash of blockchain will only lead to he crash of Bitcoin. The fear of supercomputers is not unheard. Anything which can make blockchain unreliable will make Bitcoin go to 0 as the sole purpose for what the btc was created will no longer be valid.
The security is provides if gets threatened, the ultimate use case will cease to exist.

I think if we found a breach on the blockchain, and some people "hack", BTC will probably die, but this is only a very, very remote chance to happen
And obviously some big events like the end of the world, end of electricity and internet, some global war...

Nothing can stop or crash bitcoin to zero unless if there is a global catastrophe which would blank out the entire net or source of electricity people people wouldnt able to access online.

Im not saying it isnt possible to fail but to think the possibility is nearly zero.As long theres a big community that do supports it then its unlikely to fail specially Bitcoin is the first or king of Crypto
and crashing it to the floor wont really be that easy.We are heading towards future where online payments and transactions will surely be adopted and blockchain tech would be there.

We are talking about conditions that happen in some extreme situations like world war III or some huge natural disaster that would strike the world or some global hackers attack on critical infrastructure.
So, basicly any situation that would interupt electricity and internet connection. All these situations are possible but still hope not very likely to happen.

How about a critical vulnerability that separates coins from their rightful owners en masse? Let's say the encryption underpinning Bitcoin's signatures is broken. The security protecting the entire monetary supply would have been compromised so forking to a new signature algorithm doesn't completely address the issue.

Compare this to the 2010 value overflow bug. (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Value_overflow_incident) The community was able to pinpoint the block where that bug was exploited and effectively roll back to that point. That can't really be done if the encryption underlying Bitcoin itself was simply broken at some point in time. Rollback to where? How do we even know when the vulnerability emerged? It probably wasn't immediately exploited as a mass 0-day attack.

Hard to see BTC maintaining much value in that situation.

Probably when there is a world war and money is not anymore valuable, people will be back in the old age of just prioritizing its food just to survive.
Bitcoin is money, we don't need that as a world that is on war cannot appreciate technology anymore, no more phones, computers needed at that time, and since bitcoin and crypto basically is only accessible through the internet, then no access means we can't use it so it would be useless.

this is just a worst scenario but let's not hope it would happen.

There are many conditions to crash any current market to zero, but in terms of cryptocurrency there are few:

1. War
One doesn't simply recover from a massive destruction, whether by financial, stock or cryptocurrency all will suffer. Rebuilding what has been lost can be a painstaking task. Cooperation and trust are needed very much for any restructure but after a massive war it can be a very serious matter.

2. Network Failure
If the main internet grid has been destroyed or any existing channels of internet has been replace by another technology it can disrupt the current market by shutting down P2P. No connection, No P2P.

3. Global Ban
The current cryptocurrency market possess no potential threat on any fiat currencies but certain countries do ban any transaction in junction with crypto. If there would be a global ban regarding crypto markets and penalize those who engage such endeavors then most likely it will render the market into a crash.

Undoubtedly, all those options that you proposed can affect the cryptocurrency market and bring down the price of cryptocurrency below the usual level.  But we must also take into account the fact that, for example, military operations can provoke the opposite effect, since fiat cryptocurrencies will no longer be valued and cryptocurrencies may take their place.  It is under this option that many cryptocurrency users expect developments in relation to users from Iran, given the complex conflict between Iran and the United States.  I think that the only and most important problem for cryptocurrency in the future may be weak stability in front of a quantum computer.  As far as I know, even this problem is being solved by many experts today.

I really like your points however I think that things doesn't have to be to complicated:

Loss of interest
People just stop using crypto currencies and have no desire to adopt

Working monetary system
Everyone is happy with their paper money and there is no need for decentralized currencies anymore

I think it won't at the moment. Lol

Just imagine how Trump almost start a World War 3? But that's not going to happen since most leader of the countries wouldn't want to join on the craziness of Trump because they know how bad it is to have a world war just like what they have learned from the past. The only thing that would stop Bitcoin is having no access to the internet and the price of Bitcoin would collapse too fast just like a domino down to zero value.

Basically Bitcoin can't run without the internet. If for some reason the Internet service is shut down all over the world, then Bitcoin will become Zero. Because all the activities of Bitcoin depends on the Internet. From transactions to trading, everything is done through the Internet. I see nothing but the Internet which can reduce the price of bitcoin to zero.

and possibly the entire economy.

I have read some good points but I have my own.
Lack of support will the first one.

Examples are the alternative coins. They became just because they are forgotten or nothing is buying it anymore.
Some may say it is the shut down of internet but that won't happen. That just means there is a world war going on if internet cannot be provided anymore.
Electricity have so many alternatives by now so take that out.

Yeah, that summarize it. Lack of support.

Even coins that have no intrinsic value have value solely for existing on the market of a small exchange.

I would say that BTC will always carry some sort of value to someone, whether it's investors, people who need to transfer money overseas, so on and so forth. The demand for BTC is not only as a speculative token, it has a range of practical uses that I simply cannot see going away any time soon.

As long as BTC has a hard limit and continues to have some sort of demand, there will be value. For it to truly go to zero, the hard cap has to be broken, which is extremely unlikely given that the community simply won't allow it to occur.

Bitcoin will crash or cease to operate if every miner stops the mining process. Thats the only way I think can stop bitcoin. But since its decentralized there is no way we can do that. In centralized things its possible to stop or manipulate since you have complete control over the process.

And to add for this, when all the supports coming from miners, investors, traders and users will no longer be inherent. It could be an odds to see like that but that is the only way I could think that it stops crypto. But, are we letting this thing to happen? Definitely, not, in fact, we even supportive to the market even we struggles so much difficulties cause we believe that this could help us to our life and our future.