Bitcoin - Nuke Attack hypothetical

[Tripmode]

Lets say hypothetically there is a nuke attack on the world and the Internet is serverely gimped.

Now lets also say the hashrate plummets. The difficulty was adjusted for pre-nuke levels and once the rate falls, solving a block could take days or months or years.

This could be a major problem. There are other disaster type scenarios which could cause the hashrate to fall. How would bitcoin survive?

Obviously this is a hypothetical scenario and am no way and I saying bitcoin is no good because of this slim possibility.

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[jwzguy]

Hedge your btc investment in ammo.

[Ghost of USD]

If the internet were to be destroyed due to some kind of disaster, I think the survivors would have much bigger problems to worry about than bitcoin.

[dooner4]

People's lives > Bitcoins

Hope you realize that. If a nuke attack happens, money won't be a thing anymore.

[dafridge]

more likely, a government joins, spikes the difficulty 100x then they leave!

[Tripmode]

Ok let me rephrase: if some sort of world event like an energy crisis caused the hash rate to plummet, solving the next block could be impossible. Any mechanism built into bitcoin to protect it?

[DeathAndTaxes]

Simple answer ... no.  Longer answer the hashrate will adjust in time.  So a reduction in hashpower of 50% would only be a minor effect.  The average block time would be 20 minutes, time to next adjustment would be 2 to 4 weeks.  Certainly survivable.   Even a 75% reduction wouldn't be fatal.  It would take 1-2 months to adjust to normal and 40 minutes blocks means the network would limp along until the adjustment. 

If something took 99% of computing power offline then it probably means Bitcoin is done, then again "it" probably took you offline too making the point kinda moot.  If you think it is a major concern then either support an alt-coin which has a shorter adjustment window or build a new one.

[muirmc]

I'd argue that nuclear war would only impact the internet's total bandwidth, not its existence. Like someone else said, if the internet is dead and buried... chances are so are you.

[spiral_mind]

The answer is yes. Sort of. If a massive EMP blast or a large number of smaller ones knocked out a big chunk of the network then somebody like ASICminer could easily control the majority of the blockchain if they are lucky enough to be unaffected. They could initiate a 51% attack soon pretty easily even without an EMP blast knocking the network out.

[jag2k2]

If we have very little energy then we have very little economy.  We can go back to bartering with bone fragments.  We'll call it bitbone

[Kotank]

Lets worry about surviving before we focus on what could happen to our bitcoins if something like a worldwide EMP blast/nuke happened.

[dafridge]

Ok let me rephrase: if some sort of world event like an energy crisis caused the hash rate to plummet, solving the next block could be impossible. Any mechanism built into bitcoin to protect it?

no. someone sort of did this attack on the 'testnet' and they had to reset it

[bitexchanger]

If there was a nuclear attack that wiped out the entire internet, bitcoins would probably be the least of your concerns.

[selforganizationftw]

more reasonable question: if north korea nukes america tomorrow, it will not wipe out the internet, but it might cause some serious havock.  how will Bitcoin respond?

[dafridge]

more reasonable question: if north korea nukes america tomorrow, it will not wipe out the internet, but it might cause some serious havock.  how will Bitcoin respond?

"route around the damage"