Would World War instantly destroy Bitcoin?

[pjviitas]

The effects of a world war would affect currencies in multiple ways.

In almost every way I can think of, distributed monetary systems would be superior to centralized monetary systems.

Any centralized transaction processing facilities i.e. banks in these cities would be destroyed however distributed transaction processing would fare much better since it would not rely on a single node to function.

The other thing worth considering is the value of the currency for any of the countries on that list if they chose the wrong ally and ended up on the losing side.  Their currency would most likely be devalued beyond repair.

This question really is about comparing Bitcoin as a value store to something like Gold not a fiat currency. It occurred to me that even were Bitcoin to survive and thrive for the next ten years, growing in infrastructure and adoption, that the ultra planner types would always want to store a substantial portion of their assets in Gold to protect against the worst of disasters. Bitcoin is not really designed to survive a worst case scenario. However, Gold is..... IMHO

I think the most valuable things in the scenario your talking about is bullets and fuel in order to procure water, food and shelter.  I don't think gold will be worth much however, if it was simply a world war 3 scenario then ya I think gold is a good idea.

[Siegfried]

Albert Einstein said: "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."

If there is a World War III, neither bitcoin nor any other financial asset will matter.

[aminorex]

There could be a world war in which nukes were not used, or if they were used, were used only tactically in some theatres.  Such a war would be unlikely to cause sufficient Internet damage to break bitcoin.  You would have to have EMPs on a large enough scale to break redundant backbones, some of which cross-connect far from major cities and military bases whcih are likely targets of strategic attacks, so it is even possible that bitcoin could survive strategic use.

Some scenarios in which large-scale strategic nuclear weapon use would be highly disruptive:

1) Russia vs. China

2) Russia vs. Europe

3) Russia vs. America

4) China vs. America

5) China vs. Europe

6) America vs. Europe

Of these the worst for bitcoin would be #4 since so much mining is in the US or China.  None seem likely.  More likely nuclear wars are:

1) China vs. Japan

2) Israel vs. Iran

3) Saudi Arabia vs. Iran

4) China vs. India

5) Pakistan vs. India

Of these the worst for bitcoin is #1 or #4, but I doubt it would cause a bad fork.

[pjviitas]

There could be a world war in which nukes were not used, or if they were used, were used only tactically in some theatres.  Such a war would be unlikely to cause sufficient Internet damage to break bitcoin.  You would have to have EMPs on a large enough scale to break redundant backbones, some of which cross-connect far from major cities and military bases whcih are likely targets of strategic attacks, so it is even possible that bitcoin could survive strategic use.

Some scenarios in which large-scale strategic nuclear weapon use would be highly disruptive:

1) Russia vs. China

2) Russia vs. Europe

3) Russia vs. America

4) China vs. America

5) China vs. Europe

6) America vs. Europe

Of these the worst for bitcoin would be #4 since so much mining is in the US or China.  None seem likely.  More likely nuclear wars are:

1) China vs. Japan

2) Israel vs. Iran

3) Saudi Arabia vs. Iran

4) China vs. India

5) Pakistan vs. India

Of these the worst for bitcoin is #1 or #4, but I doubt it would cause a bad fork.

+1

Anyone who has been in the military doesn't believe in no-win scenarios....if everyone does it right then there should be a way to to win it even if wmd's are involved.

I think a lot of people get this kind of thing confused with events which cause a complete breakdown in society (the end of life as we know it).  These events are usually apocalyptic in nature and can be caused by nukes however don't have to be and can actually happen in a variety of ways.

Assuming that the world doesn't experience an apocalyptic event...I think there are outcomes where WW3 could happen with Bitcoin remaining largely intact.

[deisik]

Internet could be broken up into some isolated parts. The weak points are the submarine communications cables. Those are few in number (relatively). Other ways to cross seas and oceans, such as satellite, will quickly be confiscated by governments.
In case that after such an event two different block chains exists and connectivity is restored, I think the block chain which is the longest will be chosen. That is, if same protocol is used.
All transactions done in the other block chain will be worthless, and also the miners will lose all there earnings.
Double spending shouldn't be a problem, because then you would've access to both networks. And that isn't possible according to the assumptions.

Satellites will be even sooner turned to just garbage by a bucket of small nails thrown in the space at the required orbit (and each satellite gone to pieces yet more aggravating the situation). I think both Russian and American military sputniks can do this (blow out forming a cloud of lethal particles) in case such a need arises...

[CounterStrike]

I am curious to those of you in the blockchain engineering side of Bitcoin what would happen to Bitcoin if a large scale war developed.

Unless there are features I am unaware of it seems that Bitcoin would not survive as certainly internet access across the globe would be regulated and controlled the moment war broke out resulting in forked blockchains everywhere.

And doesn't this mean that eventually Bitcoin will die because another World War most certainly will happen some day...

No, the price would sky rocket cause no body want to keep USD.

[subvolatil]

I am curious to those of you in the blockchain engineering side of Bitcoin what would happen to Bitcoin if a large scale war developed.

Unless there are features I am unaware of it seems that Bitcoin would not survive as certainly internet access across the globe would be regulated and controlled the moment war broke out resulting in forked blockchains everywhere.

And doesn't this mean that eventually Bitcoin will die because another World War most certainly will happen some day...

No, the price would sky rocket cause no body want to keep USD.

I think the Bitcoin itself may break into  different  forks  if  a World war would happen.
This is  because the internet  would  be broken into isolated networks.

[TheButterZone]

Internet could be broken up into some isolated parts. The weak points are the submarine communications cables. Those are few in number (relatively). Other ways to cross seas and oceans, such as satellite, will quickly be confiscated by governments.
In case that after such an event two different block chains exists and connectivity is restored, I think the block chain which is the longest will be chosen. That is, if same protocol is used.
All transactions done in the other block chain will be worthless, and also the miners will lose all there earnings.
Double spending shouldn't be a problem, because then you would've access to both networks. And that isn't possible according to the assumptions.

Satellites will be even sooner turned to just garbage by a bucket of small nails thrown in the space at the required orbit (and each satellite gone to pieces yet more aggravating the situation). I think both Russian and American military sputniks can do this (blow out forming a cloud of lethal particles) in case such a need arises...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome
Learned that watching http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0816398/

[Cryptopher]

The effects of a world war would affect currencies in multiple ways.

In almost every way I can think of, distributed monetary systems would be superior to centralized monetary systems.

Any centralized transaction processing facilities i.e. banks in these cities would be destroyed however distributed transaction processing would fare much better since it would not rely on a single node to function.

The other thing worth considering is the value of the currency for any of the countries on that list if they chose the wrong ally and ended up on the losing side.  Their currency would most likely be devalued beyond repair.

This question really is about comparing Bitcoin as a value store to something like Gold not a fiat currency. It occurred to me that even were Bitcoin to survive and thrive for the next ten years, growing in infrastructure and adoption, that the ultra planner types would always want to store a substantial portion of their assets in Gold to protect against the worst of disasters. Bitcoin is not really designed to survive a worst case scenario. However, Gold is..... IMHO

Gold would be safe in value, but not very safe in storage.

[troy112]

The question should be, if something like this happens will you survive to use bitcoins??

[aminorex]

I think the Bitcoin itself may break into  different  forks  if  a World war would happen.
This is  because the internet  would  be broken into isolated networks.

Re-merging a forked chain is certainly not impossible.  If the damage were great enough to justify the cost of repair, it would be repaired.

[deisik]

I think the Bitcoin itself may break into  different  forks  if  a World war would happen.
This is  because the internet  would  be broken into isolated networks.

Re-merging a forked chain is certainly not impossible.  If the damage were great enough to justify the cost of repair, it would be repaired.

No, the winner takes it all, lol

[pjviitas]

I think the Bitcoin itself may break into  different  forks  if  a World war would happen.
This is  because the internet  would  be broken into isolated networks.

Re-merging a forked chain is certainly not impossible.  If the damage were great enough to justify the cost of repair, it would be repaired.

No, the winner takes it all, lol

+1

History shows that whichever side won the war would probably have the "correct" block chain.

[NordicMoose]

Except that nobody has seen a psychic flying pig, and there were already 2 world wars.

So what you're saying is... we're overdue for the psychic flying pigs?

Nearly choked on my drink. Keep up the good work. I'm still wondering whether I should respond to this thread but I have a sneaking suspicion bitcoin will be all right after another war or two. Ever had one of those moments that someone asks a question and the answer is too obvious so you draw a puppy blank rather than go into excruciating detail to back up your point?

...you're probably going to be too busy holding your guts in to care.

I'm holding in tears.

[aminorex]

Ever had one of those moments that someone asks a question and the answer is too obvious so you draw a puppy blank rather than go into excruciating detail to back up your point?

Every fracking day.

I'm holding in tears.

All the freaking time.

[DieJohnny]

Ever had one of those moments that someone asks a question and the answer is too obvious so you draw a puppy blank rather than go into excruciating detail to back up your point?

Every fracking day.

Every time I talk to my manager......

[Enkel]

I think the Bitcoin itself may break into  different  forks  if  a World war would happen.
This is  because the internet  would  be broken into isolated networks.

Re-merging a forked chain is certainly not impossible.  If the damage were great enough to justify the cost of repair, it would be repaired.

I don't quite understand this. Say, bitcoin has global adoption, then something happens and a region becomes isolated.

Say, BadCountry shuts off all routing at the borders and manages to get a good handle on all levels of comms, so that it is genuinely isolated.  (Or maybe the world takes issues with BadCountry, and puts all their IP space into a non-routing black hole). Either way, there is network inside the country, but not between the country and the rest of the globe.

In that situation, all new BTC transactions will be with other people in that country and people outside of that country will not get anything to process related to the transactions that happen inside of the borders of BadCountry. The reverse is also true. Residents of BadCountry won't have any information about external transactions.

So, it seems like merging shouldn't be that hard to do? If communications is ever reconnected, wouldn't it just be a matter of the two forms of information being caught up into one single chain?

[IamNotSure]

Having two co-existing blockchain would be a disaster. That means that each balance could be spent twice (once on each blockchain) This renders a "merge" most likely impossible. The value of each BTC would be halved since it could be spent two times (on both sides of the frontline actually)

Assuming you could work around a blocus, an idea would be to increase difficulty to achive a the block generation of 24h instead of 10m and try to gather all the possible transaction on both sides of the frontline to avoid double spend. But 24h block generation might slow down the network to 1 conf every three days in unlucky scenarios...

[Enkel]

Having two co-existing blockchain would be a disaster. That means that each balance could be spent twice (once on each blockchain) This renders a "merge" most likely impossible. The value of each BTC would be halved since it could be spent two times (on both sides of the frontline actually)

Assuming you could work around a blocus, an idea would be to increase difficulty to achive a the block generation of 24h instead of 10m and try to gather all the possible transaction on both sides of the frontline to avoid double spend. But 24h block generation might slow down the network to 1 conf every three days in unlucky scenarios...

How could you do that if the two environments are isolated?  To spend a coin, you need to have the private key. The private key will exist in one environment or the other, but not both. Even if it existed in both, wouldn't the biggest chain win and the smaller chain be thrown out?

[benzone]

Wars can be actually pretty good for business. If we were to talk about a zombie apocalypse, that's different story altogether.