Hurricane on East Coast - possible Bitcoin service disruptions

[evoorhees]

Hey all,

Most people know there is a massive storm hitting the east coast of the US over the next few days. It is likely to cause widespread power outages.



Indeed, I'll speak on behalf of BitInstant/Coinapult/Paysius/SatoshiDICE here - if you can't get a hold of us, we may be trapped in the hurricane (see photo above)! Other Bitcoiners may be similarly affected. So please be patient this week   Note that web service should be fine because our sites are not hosted locally. It's unlikely the services themselves will be interrupted, but getting a hold of us (the actual people) may be difficult through Wed.

Please pray to Satoshi for us!

[BitPay Business Solutions]

stay dry and safe!

[Phinnaeus Gage]

Pray for Rassah's Precious, too.

[LightRider]

They're shutting down the entire NYSE for two days. I think the bitcoin economy will show its resilience in the face of natural disaster.

[TheHarbinger]

On a side note, while trading on Wall St. is suspended Monday, BTC exchanges will be open.

[BCB]

Last I heard electronic trading on the street WOULD NOT be suspended Monday.

[bitboyben]

http://abcnews.go.com/m/blogEntry?id=17587225
Update: floor AND electronic trading have been canceled.

[AngryCatfish]

The end is nye!

[ryann]

This just in. You'll only get some rain and some wind from this Category 1 hurricane. Unless you live in a straw house. What you do is take your bitcoin to yoru local grocery store and buy food and water.....oh wait

[sgravina]

The block chain is still humming away here in Massachusetts.

[Yankee (BitInstant)]

I am about to lose power...

[Aahzman]

The end is nye!

Bill Nye?










*the word is "nigh"

[Digigami]

How ugly is it getting there now? Anyone able to post some pics?

[BCB]

Very Scary

We just had a gust and I thought my windows were going to blow in

Nothing to post on photo.  Just grey clouds.  And and at time horizontal rain.

[Mushroomized]

Keep those hard drives dry...

Im about to get wrecked by the hurricane (central PA area)

[Yankee (BitInstant)]

How ugly is it getting there now? Anyone able to post some pics?

You can play around with these:

www.earthcam.com/usa/newyork/timessquare/

[Mushroomized]

After my home is destroyed and I am forced to survive from ramen noodles and canned tuna, I'll try posting some pictures of the disaster in order to raise funds to rebuild society 

[Yankee (BitInstant)]

[bbit]

I am about to lose power...

[BCB]

but  the bitinstant servers are not located in brooklyn are they?

Is the service hosted in a location in the path of the storm?

[Yankee (BitInstant)]

but  the bitinstant servers are not located in brooklyn are they?

Is the service hosted in a location in the path of the storm?

Nope lol

We're hosted on a few servers on opposite ends of the country and in the cloud

When you go to BitInstant.com, our load balancer will direct you to the closest available or best performing server.

Based on location, speed, efficiency, outages, ect.

If 1 server goes down, you won't feel it.

We can easily boot up more if needed be.

[juggalodarkclow]

The rain is picking up here a little west of Albany, NY. Wind isn't much of an issue yet. Hopefully the power stays on or I'll be down in my basement raising up my rigs because no power=no sump pump

UPDATE: Rain still coming down steadily, having occasional wind gusts, and the lights are flickering every once in a while. Decided to go ahead and shut down my rigs and bring them upstairs, rather lose a coin or two instead of 3 rigs

UPDATE #2: Made it thru the night okay. We had high winds til sometime after midnight (when I fell asleep) but no power outages or damage. I managed to get one of my 1 Gh/s rigs connected to wireless last night but I left another 1.6 Gh/s offline due to lack of wireless adapters lol. Since everything is apart I'll take some time today to reorganize my setup. Good luck to everyone dealing with damages.

[farlack]

The rain is picking up here a little west of Albany, NY. Wind isn't much of an issue yet. Hopefully the power stays on or I'll be down in my basement raising up my rigs because no power=no sump pump

Yeah good idea lol.

[Deafboy]

If 1 server goes down, you won't feel it.
We can easily boot up more if needed be.

When was the last time we heard something like that? Oh, yes... just before the GLBSE shutdown

Just kidding. Keep dry...

[Yankee (BitInstant)]

If 1 server goes down, you won't feel it.
We can easily boot up more if needed be.

When was the last time we heard something like that? Oh, yes... just before the GLBSE shutdown

GLBSE shut down because Nefario finally got good legal advice and realized it was illegal 

Nothing to do with servers going down.

Just kidding. Keep dry...

Thanks 

[Syke]

I'd just like to be clear, Bitcoin will not be affected by any storm. Maybe some other related services, but Bitcoin itself is too distributed to be affected by something so small as a hurricane.

[Garr255]

As devastating as Sandy is, the pictures by Gweedo and Yankee on this thread are awesome, haha!

and in the cloud

There are plenty of those in NY right now

[bitboyben]

Wow 3.1 million with out power!

[Garr255]

Yeah its insane. A friend there told me there are a bunch of "apocalypse parties" haha.

Sadly, I sincerely doubt that my generation will be able to communicate without externally supplied electricity...

[Photon939]

I lost power at about 9:45 pm est, wind is gusting but not that much rain
So my miners are currently offline despite trying to run my cable modem
From my lead acid battery bank (no signal) fun stuff.

I live in eastern Pennsylvania and it is unusual to lose power being on a
Commercial grade circuit that feeds a high school and several grocery
Stores

Posted from my phone

[DoomDumas]

I'd just like to be clear, Bitcoin will not be affected by any storm. Maybe some other related services, but Bitcoin itself is too distributed to be affected by something so small as a hurricane.

Im wondering if all those power outage will reflect on total network hash power !!!   If many miners got power outage...

We'll see..

[Beans]

I'd just like to be clear, Bitcoin will not be affected by any storm. Maybe some other related services, but Bitcoin itself is too distributed to be affected by something so small as a hurricane.

Im wondering if all those power outage will reflect on total network hash power !!!   If many miners got power outage...

We'll see..

Is it bad that I hope it does?

[kwoody]

I'm about 15-20 minutes southeast of Washington DC, we've had some crazy wind but rain isn't anything more than a constant drizzle more or less. Lost power once for about 2 minutes a few hours ago. I feel like I've been cheated out of an apocalyptic storm... I like it when people forget about money and politics and just huddle together for mutual survival

[DoomDumas]

On TV, every few month, some even are shown as being appocalyptic..   I was 500 Km away from home for a week, seeing on tv news that a major forest fire was raging near my own town.. it was really appocalypts for us watching on TV.  Then back home, speaking with friends, they have all had the same, bah, the sky became orange for an hour or two.. nothing else special happened..

Closing our TV is a good start to a better live..

(I dont want to minimize the Sandra event, I know some will suffer damage and lost, and it's an historic big storm.. but nothing near what our TVs are pushing)

[LightRider]

Did MNW move to NYC?

[LightRider]

The end is nyse!

[Garr255]

Did MNW move to NYC?

He likes thrills, so he took a vacation to a hurricane evacuation zone.

[TheHarbinger]

Did MNW move to NYC?

He likes thrills, so he took a vacation to a hurricane evacuation zone.

No, it's just another douchbag, totally unrelated to our douchbag.

[niko]

I'd just like to be clear, Bitcoin will not be affected by any storm. Maybe some other related services, but Bitcoin itself is too distributed to be affected by something so small as a hurricane.

Im wondering if all those power outage will reflect on total network hash power !!!   If many miners got power outage...

We'll see..

Six blocks in the last hour. It would be hard to tell any way, due to statistical variance.

[eleuthria]

I'd just like to be clear, Bitcoin will not be affected by any storm. Maybe some other related services, but Bitcoin itself is too distributed to be affected by something so small as a hurricane.

Im wondering if all those power outage will reflect on total network hash power !!!   If many miners got power outage...

We'll see..

We likely won't see enough of an effect that can't be confused with the normal network variance.  While the news is hyping this up significantly, just remember a few key things:

1) The hurricane is not going to be affecting that many people overall (outside of heavy rain/wind).  The vast majority of the east coast will still have power and internet service, though it might not be as reliable as they're used to.
2) Coastal cities tend to have fairly high living costs per square foot, and higher electric costs, so the concentration of huge mining farms is likely very small in areas affected by the hurricane.
3) We are still seeing steady network growth, so any small dips from some areas going offline are likely to be evened out with new hashing power coming online in other areas.

[TheHarbinger]

We likely won't see enough of an effect that can't be confused with the normal network variance.  While the news is hyping this up significantly, just remember a few key things:

1) The hurricane is not going to be affecting that many people overall (outside of heavy rain/wind).  The vast majority of the east coast will still have power and internet service, though it might not be as reliable as they're used to.
2) Coastal cities tend to have fairly high living costs per square foot, and higher electric costs, so the concentration of huge mining farms is likely very small in areas affected by the hurricane.

Not trying to start an argument or anything but...

It wasn't a hurricane. I know, I know, the news stations were blasting out all over the airwaves that it was, but it wasn't when it made landfall.

I wouldn't say 6.5 million people without power isn't "affecting that many people overall".

Probably the highest concentration of BitCoin nodes on the planet is located in the northeastern U.S.  While the number of nodes does not directly indicate the total hashrate from an area, it's a pretty good correlation.

On the other hand, I doubt the hashrate drop from that area will be large enough, or long enough to make any major change to the next difficulty adjustment.

[DoomDumas]

I'd just like to be clear, Bitcoin will not be affected by any storm. Maybe some other related services, but Bitcoin itself is too distributed to be affected by something so small as a hurricane.

Im wondering if all those power outage will reflect on total network hash power !!!   If many miners got power outage...

We'll see..

Six blocks in the last hour. It would be hard to tell any way, due to statistical variance.

Indeed, seems that normal variance account to a bigger proportion than the number of miner affected by power outage !    This conclusion helps figuring how big is the bitcoin computational power  impressive !