Bitcoin Forum

Update 6/12: This episode has been released!! Please tune in (http://youmeandbtc.com/podcasts/ymb-podcast-e24-hypothetical-bitcoin-questions/) to see if your question was mentioned and then come back here to discuss what we talked about! Thanks to everyone who contributed!

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Update 6/9: This episode has been recorded and will be released this Thursday. We'll let you know when it's out!

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Hello there! Daniel Brown here from YouMeAndBTC.com (http://YouMeAndBTC.com). We host a weekly podcast there and had an interesting idea recently. We want to collect all sorts of hypothetical questions related to Bitcoin and try to respond to them on the show. Submissions can be as wild or as serious as you want, provided they are truly hypothetical. The situations posed must not be real things that happen with Bitcoin (i.e. what will happen when the block reward halves?). Instead, we want things that are impossible.

A good example of a wild question: What if Bitcoins were actually digital unicorns waiting to be released into the real world?

A good example of a more serious question: How would people use Bitcoin differently if there were to be 21 billion coins instead of 21 million?

Both of those types are acceptable and encouraged. We will take any that we like and discuss them on the show. I made this topic self-moderated because I want to avoid everyone getting sidetracked with a debate about just one or two questions. You may respond briefly if you have any thoughts about someone else's question, but in general, we want this thread to be just a cool list of questions. Feel free to submit as many as you like. We will do our best to mention who submitted each question that we talk about on the show.

Let me know if you have questions about how this all works or anything too. Thanks and have fun!

I got one, but you probably won't touch it with a ten foot pole.

Bearing in mind that the person in question is on record in stating that such-and-such is 100% NOT true, thus the following question can now be considered 100% hypothetical: What if a pedophile (NOT accused) was elected as a board member of The Bitcoin Foundation?

Remember, this is 100% hypothetical, and if you believe that this is not the case, then clearly state such on this forum.

~Bruno Kucinskas

Yeah that's probably a good question. I haven't done much research on this so I don't really have an opinion right now, but I think it's safe to say there is some uncertainty. That would make "What if a DEFINITE pedophile was elected?" a hypothetical question.

Thanks! Keep them coming!

What if the hokey pokey really is what its all about? And will it be sha or scrypt?

Definitely something we need to be thinking about these days haha. Bring on more!

what if basement dwelling armchair activists that live off social security, actually got off their ... behinds.. and used their computer skills in bitcoin jobs.

what if people stopped worrying about factors that wont affect them in their lifetime, and instead found solutions to todays problem

and for the tinfoil hatters
what if the zombified sheeple that happily accept the government screwed them, that happily drink fluoride water to keep them zombified. all, at the same time woke up tomorrow and decided not to be screwed over...

Would it be possible for another alt-coin to overtake Bitcoin within the next 5 years in terms of value and avaliable kiosks to use it?

Would you rather fight a Bitcoin-sized Dogecoin or a hundred Dogecoin sized Bitcoins?

What stage of bitcoin adoption is required before the following takes place:

1. USD is dethroned as the world reserve currency
2. US economy tanks and bankrupts the country
3. US government starts pushing draconian style tactics to scare/prevent people away from bitcoin
4. The people in the US recognize bitcoin has serious advantages over us currency and begin to abandon it


Add timeframes to make it more entertaining :)

No stage of bitcoin adoption is required for these things to happen. These eventualities were set into motion long before Bitcoin was invented. It's self-destruction at its finest.

Bit coin can ease the pain of the inevitable transition. Maybe even provide an orderly one if they are smart. 

I'm not entirely sure that those are hypothetical questions, but they could certainly still be worth talking about. Thanks!

Great question haha I can almost guarantee this will make the show.

If it's placed in geostationary orbit above the aurora, will jgarzik's bitcoin satellite be powerful enough to broadcast the blockchain over the whole globe via the magnetosphere?

The following questions are from grubles in the #bitcoin-otc IRC channel. I'm posting them here for others to see and so we don't forget about them.

1. What impact would a flaw in sha256 have on Bitcoin?

2. Is there a possibility of altcoins with the same name as Bitcoin having an effect on price, like has happened with penny stocks with similar ticker names?

What would happen to bitcoin if tomorrow we noticed Satoshi moving some of his coins mined in 2009?

What would happen if bitcoin core devs started dying in mysterious circumstances? Could bitcoin recover from such losses?

If GHash.io was discovered executing sucessful double spending attacks on the network, would people still have faith in bitcoin?

If people started targeting large mining operations with bomb attacks to attempt to lower the difficulty, how would miners respond?

What if Bitcoin was really created by Raëlians?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ra%C3%ABlism
http://rael.org/

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/11/A_gathering_of_Ra%C3%ABlians_in_South_Korea.jpg

The following pic is begging to be photoshopped. Please don't disappoint!

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2014/05/09/article-2624420-1DABCA2700000578-297_634x424.jpg

Those are all exactly the sort of questions we're looking for. Thanks!

Hypothetical: What would happen if the bitcoin network was hacked and then restored by a fork?  How would that affect us in 2014?  How much value would be lost in the network? 

This is off the top of my head, you can alter/refine it anyway you like.

Okay fine...


what would happen to bitcoin if we all woke up to Red Dawn tomorrow to discover we're being physically invaded by China AND Russia who've had just about enough of our shit?  ;D

Definitely interesting. The whole idea of a hard fork always bothers me a little. The fact that enough people can really change how Bitcoin works has some bad connotations in my head.

Thanks!

It's almost surprising that there haven't been competing groups attempting to 'take over' bitcoin so to speak. I'm sure we'll see some sort of conflict like that in the future. Lots of good questions can be discussed surrounding that topic.

Ok, here's one. What if a country, any country no matter how small, actually started using Bitcoin as it's national currency?

Would the blockchain implode into a black hole from the massive amount of additional transactions?

Would that country buy massive mining farms from BFL to secure its new currency?

Would BFL make the country preorder the equipment and finally deliver it after the countries government is overthrown making the order useless?

Would the country organize a 51% attack on the blockchain to overthrow all of the worlds governments at once?

How many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsiebitcoin?

Will the San Francisco Giants go all the way next year?

What if USD/EUR/GBP/whatever required consensus agreement before being considered as spent or traded.

If a bitcoin falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

Who would make the best and worst bitcoin CEO?

Great list! We'll probably hit some of those.

That's an interesting thought. So the only difference from cryptocurrency would be that it's issued by a government (and perhaps they could still print more whenever they wanted?), but the consensus mechanism would still be in place. Probably worth discussing. Thanks!

what if enough bitcoin was gathered to bribe all dictionary companies to remove the words 'what' and 'if' and then a campaign started to get people to use the phrase "to solve this" instead

What if the bitcoin network became sentient and began using humans as currency?

Just wanted to let everyone know that this episode has now been recorded and we'll be releasing it this Thursday. Tune in to see if your question made the cut!

Update 6/12: This episode has been released!! Please tune in (http://youmeandbtc.com/podcasts/ymb-podcast-e24-hypothetical-bitcoin-questions/) to see if your question was mentioned and then come back here to discuss what we talked about! Thanks to everyone who contributed!

"Is bombing a bunch of people and making a few million, possibly billion, really worth getting people mad at you?"
Hehe, not quite the light hearted discussion I was expecting.
Still, well done.

Haha thanks!

I think maybe the reason we were a little more serious about that one was because there really are some senseless people out there who would think about trying that...

Great show - very funny. I don't think I would lick a Dogecoin either. I don't mind eating a little hair in the pursuit of some hobbies but that's not the hair I would eat. lol

Would the country organize a 51% attack on the blockchain to overthrow all of the worlds governments at once? I misstated this question but you figured it out in the end. You're right, I meant BFL delivers so slowly that the world has already adopted Bitcoin so the original country has to attack the network to get their government coin back.

No more wars for profit, I'd guess.

Glad we could get that question understood! Might be an apocalypse though by the time BFL's rig showed up.

I'm getting a dead link. Is there a YouTube version of this show?

Thanks, bud.

Yup whole site is down for me

Hmm, I hope nothing is wrong with my server. It's working for me now, but if the site is still down for you all, please let me know.

Here is a direct download (https://www.dropbox.com/s/f4cfywbqkspyw8p/Hypothetical%20Bitcoin%20Questions.mp3?dl=1) link too, for anyone who wants to grab the show.