Short Story: Bitcoin Apocalypse

[dnprock]

I wrote a random, made up short story. Have a fun weekend.

Original post: https://bitflate.org/post/2019/08/24/short-story-bitcoin-apocalypse.html

Note: This story is a fiction of the future. It’s not exactly what will happen to Bitcoin.

The year is 2140. A apocalyptic disaster hits planet Earth. Human civilization is wiped out. Humans die of starvation and disease. Bitcoin mining network is down. Bitcoin satellites are still flying around Earth. But nobody communicates to them. Hashrate dropped to 0. No new block is created. Pockets of human survivors are trying to make through their days.

Bitcoin is dead. Except, it isn’t. It’s just silent. Its enormous difficulty is still waiting for someone to mine the next block. But nobody can. Much of the mining infrastructure is destroyed. Bitcoin death prediction was wrong. Civilization can collapse but Bitcoin is still there. Without sufficient hashrate, nobody can attack the Bitcoin blockchain.

Fast forward 100 years. The year is 2240. Humans rebuilt their infrastructure. They are about to reach mining hashrate before the apocalypse. Some groups of humans are able to recover bitcoins from exchanges. Having centralized exchanges can be useful for recovery effort. The network is about to produce new blocks.

But this time, Bitcoin splits into 2 chains. Some people want to soft fork and restart mining rewards since so many coins were lost. The total theoretical supply limit of Bitcoin will be 42 million. Other people want to stick with the original supply limit of 21 million. The first group achieves majority. They took the domain name, social media handles. They anoint new leaders and proclaim themselves to be the true Bitcoin. The second group is angry. They rename their chain to Bitcoin Apocalypse to remind people that they are the Bitcoin chain before the apocalypse. And they also vow to bring apocalypse to the self-proclaimed true Bitcoin chain. Just like the forks that came before, Bitcoin Apocalypse will fade in memory.

Bitcoin is still not dead. It continues to live along with humans. It adapts to the majority consensus. It’s sneaky and controlling. It feeds and survives on human’s desire to fight and control. Bitcoin sheds its old self if necessary. It rules over the world of cryptocurrencies. Its existence seems to immune to human’s suffering and will.

The End.

This comes from two things I learn recently:

1. Hashrate drop to 0 is not going to kill Bitcoin. The network just goes to sleep.
2. Bitcoin doesn’t have to be completely decentralized.

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[Kakmakr]

Well, in a Apocalypse people would most probably lose access to the most basic services, like electricity and that would cause massive problems for the Bitcoin network, because the Bitcoin network needs electricity to run their nodes and also to communicate with other nodes on the Internet.

Satellite systems communicate with devices on the ground that needs electricity and these devices needs to talk to other devices on the Internet to sustain a decentralized Blockchain.

Once communication between these nodes are established, the protocol would automatically adjust the "difficulty" for people to start mining with a lot less hashing power. 

[hatshepsut93]

Very interesting thought experiment. I think in extreme situations like this, Bitcoin's survival will boil down to how good the storage is. If there will be at least a few magnetic drives or flash drives or whatever people of the future will be using, if these memory mediums can retain data after tens/hundreds of years unpowered, then Bitcoin can always be revived.

[Ucy]

Would mining even be that much of a problem after such destruction? There will definitely be partially destroyed companies with all kinds of miners and computers but I bet the survivors will find several miners in good working condition to mine Bitcoin. Developers could make Bitcoin mining ASIC resistant to enable thousands of little and expensive miners fill the vacuum left by large hard-to-maintain miners. Mining difficulties will also go down and the few miners will rush to take advantage of this. 

The major problem however is the Internet which is currently very centralized. How are small communities going to effectively operate those huge centralized internet gateways owned by huge corporations and governments?

[javadsalehi]

Having centralized exchanges can be useful for recovery effort. The network is about to produce new blocks.

Centralized exchanges need a working network too. No difference you withdraw your coins from a centralized exchange or an hardware wallet or paper wallet. Your transaction must be confirmed.

2. Bitcoin doesn’t have to be completely decentralized.

Why do you think that?
I think bitcoin must be decentralized. Otherwise that's not bitcoin.

[DarkDays]

Didn't read the full story, but your excerpt was pretty interesting.

Note that in dire circumstances when a global catastrophy happens, Bitcoin will also probably go down since it is still heavily reliant on the internet infrastructure.

Even communicating with the blockstream satellite isn't an easy task, and the satellite could easily be overwhelmed if it's the nodes left.

[pooya87]

1. Hashrate drop to 0 is not going to kill Bitcoin. The network just goes to sleep.
2. Bitcoin doesn’t have to be completely decentralized.

1. when nobody uses bitcoin in your scenario, no more transactions are made, the blockchain doesn't grow anymore,... that means it is dead. that is basically how we define a dead coin!
and there is no coming back from it. in your scenario, the world is not limited to a single village that people can gather around and come to an agreement. what if for example Japan came back and started mining months before other countries. people in for example US are not going to accept that chain,.... then we will have at least a dozen different chains.

2. then you define another reason for calling that hypothetical bitcoin "dead" because without being completely decentralized bitcoin is as good as dead.

[killat]

Interesting story and could be one of the future scenarios for Bitcoin.

However, Bitcoin might continue to exist without needing any supply extension. 21 millions are more than enough as the subdivision is one satoshi 1/100000000, suficient for daily transactions.

[Darker45]

It is always good to exert some effort and translate something from our imagination into a work of art. I gave you a merit for it. This is fictional, of course, but isn't it wonderful for literature and technology to interweave? Perhaps this is one potent way to bring Bitcoin or crypto awareness to other people especially the younger generation.

However, since you are talking of the apocalypse, I'm afraid the world will get into a total reset. Bitcoin may not die along with the wipe-out of the entire human civilization since it is basically intangible. It is like floating in the air as compared to our fiat money that can be burned into ashes. But we have to take note that Bitcoin, for all its intents and purposes, is basically a human invention that fits a certain human age, the digital age. And an apocalypse will most probably erase most, if not all, the tracks of digital advancement. The human race, if a human or two survives, will certainly be building it from zero.   

[NeuroticFish]

when nobody uses bitcoin in your scenario, no more transactions are made, the blockchain doesn't grow anymore,... that means it is dead. that is basically how we define a dead coin!

That's correct. Just isn't that definition actually bad/ incomplete?

The problem currently is that for a coin that has no hash rate you don't know anymore if the blockchain is OK. What if somebody will "resurrect" the coin with an altered blockchain where some double spends were made? So the current "dead" coin definition is based on a trust issue and on the history (coins got to 0 hash rate because devs deserted them and then the community too, and nobody ever came back).

But in OP theory I expect that the blochchain has at least some secure backups on those satellites, so all is safe. In this case I'd say we can consider the coin "dormant". It's a SF after all 

[Wind_FURY]

Fast forward another 100 years of the victory of the 42 million supply "true Bitcoin", another debate has started. A new scaling debate! The big blockers are back with their leader ROGER VER, he is immortal! Small blocks will kill babies, he said!

Roger Ver and his developers did the hard fork, and everybody followed him, causing no chain split, to the new 100 gigameg per block, on-chain-scalable, fast coin network, and called it Dogecoin.

[jake zyrus]

It was an interesting fictional story of yours op. I won't say anything negative nor against it since it's your story and it's your own vision of the future. Though there's a lot of other possibilities when it comes to technology and cryptocurrency.  But I wonder if there's still humans in the year 2240, knowing we're slowly destroying our planet. In your story, survivors would rebuild things but I also wonder if it's that easy to do when the civilization is down.

[dnprock]

Fast forward another 100 years of the victory of the 42 million supply "true Bitcoin", another debate has started. A new scaling debate! The big blockers are back with their leader ROGER VER, he is immortal! Small blocks will kill babies, he said!

Roger Ver and his developers did the hard fork, and everybody followed him, causing no chain split, to the new 100 gigameg per block, on-chain-scalable, fast coin network, and called it Dogecoin.

Very funny My story is probably Bitcoin SciFi. Yours is Bitcoin Comedy. He can also name it Bitcoin ForeVER.

[Artemis3]

Note: This story is a fiction of the future. It’s not exactly what will happen to Bitcoin.

The year is 2140. A apocalyptic disaster hits planet Earth. Human civilization is wiped out. Humans die of starvation and disease. Bitcoin mining network is down. Bitcoin satellites are still flying around Earth. But nobody communicates to them. Hashrate dropped to 0. No new block is created. Pockets of human survivors are trying to make through their days.

Bitcoin is dead. Except, it isn’t. It’s just silent. Its enormous difficulty is still waiting for someone to mine the next block. But nobody can. Much of the mining infrastructure is destroyed. Bitcoin death prediction was wrong. Civilization can collapse but Bitcoin is still there. Without sufficient hashrate, nobody can attack the Bitcoin blockchain.

Fast forward 100 years. The year is 2240. Humans rebuilt their infrastructure. They are about to reach mining hashrate before the apocalypse. Some groups of humans are able to recover bitcoins from exchanges. Having centralized exchanges can be useful for recovery effort. The network is about to produce new blocks.

But this time, Bitcoin splits into 2 chains. Some people want to soft fork and restart mining rewards since so many coins were lost. The total theoretical supply limit of Bitcoin will be 42 million. Other people want to stick with the original supply limit of 21 million. The first group achieves majority. They took the domain name, social media handles. They anoint new leaders and proclaim themselves to be the true Bitcoin. The second group is angry. They rename their chain to Bitcoin Apocalypse to remind people that they are the Bitcoin chain before the apocalypse. And they also vow to bring apocalypse to the self-proclaimed true Bitcoin chain. Just like the forks that came before, Bitcoin Apocalypse will fade in memory.

Bitcoin is still not dead. It continues to live along with humans. It adapts to the majority consensus. It’s sneaky and controlling. It feeds and survives on human’s desire to fight and control. Bitcoin sheds its old self if necessary. It rules over the world of cryptocurrencies. Its existence seems to immune to human’s suffering and will.

The End.

This comes from two things I learn recently:

1. Hashrate drop to 0 is not going to kill Bitcoin. The network just goes to sleep.
2. Bitcoin doesn’t have to be completely decentralized.

Well i do have a lots of criticism to make of this, on various aspects. First i don't see the need to take this to "100 years", only to do it again. Yes by the year 2140 is expected for the last bitcoin to come, but by then or in fact several years before that (like a hundred lol), bitcoin production will be so slow most people would have forgot you could still mine it. Someone mentioned Dogecoin, and that is a good example. Its unlimited, and almost no one mines it, but you still can. Of course its absolutely worthless and you would lose more which is why almost no one bothers (it gets a bit of free hashrate from mixed mining). Bitcoin is going to reach a similar stage, far before the last coin is minted. By the year 2040, or 2090 at most.

Going from 21 million to 42 million doesn't really make much difference, even if most of the coins get lost. Unless you want to answer the ultimate question, but there is some other altcoin names like that... Before you think 21 million bitcoin is too little, try to count that in satoshis. 100 million satoshis make 1 bitcoin, i think even one bitcoin is plenty to go around... It would not get consensus as you naively think, and its not worth forking for that.

Also in the event of a catastrophic drop of hashrate, your little cpu could mine again. Sure, someone would need to update cgminer or an alternative...

Satellites, need fuel to stay in place. They might last long, but not as long as you think. Typical communication geostationary satellites need replacing every 10 years or so because of that (and yeah, they also get bombarded by the Sun's radiation from time to time). Satellites aren't very long lasting, a good LED light can probably outlast a satellite, unless a major discovery in propulsion is made that doesn't use any kind of "thing that runs out" (ie, that infamous EM drive).

Perhaps i would use something on the moon, or Lagrange point. Yeah, its not impossible to think somebody will be able to land the equivalent of a satellite on the moon surface and let it operate from there (The Israelis almost made it, but i guess they had a technical glitch and kinda couldn't stop properly...) I'm sure someone could just put a node with some little hashrate on the surface on the moon, same way they are doing with satellites. It is very unlikely hashrate will ever drop to zero, unless its something that wipes the human race...

[AmoreJaz]

It was an interesting fictional story of yours op. I won't say anything negative nor against it since it's your story and it's your own vision of the future. Though there's a lot of other possibilities when it comes to technology and cryptocurrency.  But I wonder if there's still humans in the year 2240, knowing we're slowly destroying our planet. In your story, survivors would rebuild things but I also wonder if it's that easy to do when the civilization is down.

that would be an interesting scenario. yes, you have a point on this. we dont even know if humanity still exists at that period. and how advance is the technology at that time that bitcoin might be obsolete in nature already. more then likely, another invention will arise...
but sometimes, it is entertaining to read short stories like the op posted. everyone can create scenarios from their mind and be imaginative what we should expect our future..
actually many futuristic films showing futuristic gadgets had really come to life!!!

[lixer]

Interesting story and could be one of the future scenarios for Bitcoin.

However, Bitcoin might continue to exist without needing any supply extension. 21 millions are more than enough as the subdivision is one satoshi 1/100000000, suficient for daily transactions.

The supply we need is quite much more than enough for us, and if we are to look at the way bitcoin was designed, it was designed to have a limited supply in other to control the problem that we are having presenting with over printing of money by the government that is making some people have more than what they can spend, and also, bitcoin is to assist fiat which is why it is called to be an alternative coin.

From these, I am not sure that bitcoin is designed for everyone, it would have been impossible for bitcoin to be used by everyone because of the number of people that we still have not exposed to technology yet, those ones will have no choice than to continue to deal with fiat, and you can see the argument point that fiat may never really be replaced.

[Slow death]

This is a really good story, I would say you could be a science fiction writer, maybe one day they could make a movie based on the story you would write. But aside from that, 100 years ago we didn't have the technology we have today, we didn't have aircraft with technology we have today, we couldn't imagine that one day we would step on the moon ... I believe that 100 years from now we can start explore other planets, maybe we'll be able to build houses on other planets so that even if Earth collapsed 100 years from now (which I find very difficult to happen), we would have other planets to stay