Sorry for the alarming headline.
Google reports a
single result for "hardcopy of the blockchain". So I figured we might find such a phrase useful. I have looked a little into the possibility that all copies of the blockchain could be destroyed by an EMP (very unlikely, it seems), or by a solar flare (more likely, but still seems remote).
Would there be a few heroes who could produce tens of GBs of data with the special properties of the blockchain that make it uniquely identifiable in the event such a catastrophe occurred? Do I want to be one of them? Sure, why not. I need like 10 DVDs and a day or three to burn them.
Honestly, though, I was hoping for some replies that say "Check out [link]" where such an effort is already being undertaken.
If a catastrophic solar flare does erase all soft memory, Bitcoin being damaged will be one of the least of our worries. If I am correct, most banks have a fair portion of their data on soft memory systems, and that would bring most of society to a halt. Even the things we could buy with Bitcoin would be difficult to process, and even harder to actually receive.
However, having an updated copy of the blockchain every 6 months or so sounds like a good idea, regardless if a solar flare was to wipe out soft memory or not.
