Who would validate transactions if all miners shut down?

[Mitzplik]

Please, spare me, dont give me answers like "it will never happen" 

[Gabi]

Yourself.

If all miners shutdown it means the bitcoin network is dead and you are the only user.

[DeathAndTaxes]

Please, spare me, dont give me answers like "it will never happen"  

All nodes validate transactions, even those who don't mine.  So I assume you mean who will put transactions into blocks?   Mining IS building the blockchain.  No miners = no blocks = no confirmations (which isn't the same thing as validation) for transactions.

[HorseCoin]

Please, spare me, dont give me answers like "it will never happen"  

All nodes validate transactions, even those who don't mine.  So I assume you mean who will put transactions into blocks?   Mining IS building the blockchain.  No miners = no blocks = no confirmations (which isn't the same thing as validation) for transactions.

i guess you could run poolers cpuminer in the background if there was an apocalypse and you were the only 2 people on earth 

[bananas]

i will for 3% fee

[s_s]

i will for 3% fee

I'll do it for 2%

[ReCat]

Me. If all miners shut down, the diff will be so low that I can CPU mine again! Fuck yeah free BTC!

[Mitzplik]

So, the transactions would be floating on the nodes waiting to be added to a block?

[DeathAndTaxes]

So, the transactions would be floating on the nodes waiting to be added to a block?

Yes all transactions would be perpetually unconfirmed (in this utterly impossible scenario).

[MrJoshua]

Please, spare me, dont give me answers like "it will never happen" 

This is like asking who would use the internet if all the computers where off.   It's a nonsensical question.  If all miners shut down, there is no bitcoin network to send transactions on, and no one to receive the transition.

If you mean just me and my buddy who is receiving the transaction are the only two nodes on the network then those will also be the only two nodes mining, and you've just undone your all miners are shut down premise.

[Mitzplik]

Please, spare me, dont give me answers like "it will never happen" 

This is like asking who would use the internet if all the computers where off.   It's a nonsensical question.  If all miners shut down, there is no bitcoin network to send transactions on, and no one to receive the transition.

If you mean just me and my buddy who is receiving the transaction are the only two nodes on the network then those will also be the only two nodes mining, and you've just undone your all miners are shut down premise.

Its not like you say. Many people can run bitcoin qt and still there could be no miners. So, before come and try to answer what wasn't asked, at least make more than one synaptic connexion.

Thanks for all the responses. It helped me to understand about the bitcoin network.

[Klestin]

dont give me answers like "it will never happen" 

So you don't want the rational answer?

[God]

Who would validate transactions if all miners shut down?

Nobody. Transactions would remain without confirmations until somebody start mining again. I would for sure, but the difficulty would have to adjust before I would manage to mine any valid blocks.

[franky1]

if everyone stopped mining, then i would start. i would not mess with transactions or change any code. therefore the blockchain would continue.

51%+ attack is only a risk if the people with 51%+ of the network decide to change things. so even if 1 person was mining alone, and he didn't change things, then there is still no problem

[MrJoshua]

Please, spare me, dont give me answers like "it will never happen"  

This is like asking who would use the internet if all the computers where off.   It's a nonsensical question.  If all miners shut down, there is no bitcoin network to send transactions on, and no one to receive the transition.

If you mean just me and my buddy who is receiving the transaction are the only two nodes on the network then those will also be the only two nodes mining, and you've just undone your all miners are shut down premise.

Its not like you say. Many people can run bitcoin qt and still there could be no miners. So, before come and try to answer what wasn't asked, at least make more than one synaptic connexion.

Thanks for all the responses. It helped me to understand about the bitcoin network.

Oh, so what you're saying is "if I intentionally don't use bitcoin as designed who will confirm transitions?"  Also a self evident and nonsensical question. Using a non-mining client alone, does not a bitcoin network make.

Originally the client did mine on your local cpu (not gpu).  To operate bitcoin AT ALL, with only two "clients", at least one of them would have to be also mining.  Any other scenario is breaking the system on purpose. Any hypothetical questions about how an intentionally broken implementation would function is just silly.

[Mitzplik]

Would all the pending transactions be grouped into the next block?
Or there would be a backlog of blocks? If this, how would the transactions be grouped in the blocks, chronologically?

[MrJoshua]

I think where you might have a misunderstanding is thinking of the miners and the clients as separate, but it absolutely requires both mechanisms for the bitcoin network to function.  And as I pointed out, they where one in the same software originally.  It is technically feasible to create and sign a transaction without doing any mining.  It is also feasible to send it "out of network" by printing it on a piece of paper and mailing it to someone for example.  At any point in time that transaction could be transmitted to the network and then be validated as long as the original bitcoins had not moved. But until the transaction is actually incorporated into the block chain it has no meaning to the network at all.  

In terms of implementation there is a pool of transactions that each miner keeps that it hears about from other nodes.  At each miners desecration (based on fees or other criteria) the miner can choose to incorporate any or all of the transactions it has in it's pool of unconfirmed transactions into the next block it attempts to solve.  These pools are more or less unique to each miner, there isn't a "big pool in the sky" of unconfirmed transitions.  Once a miner confirms a transaction in it's own pool, or receives a confirmed block that has that transaction the minor removes the transaction from it's pool of unconfirmed transactions, and continues on with the next set of unconfirmed transactions.

Is that perhaps more helpful?  Sorry if I came across a snippy, but you can't ask technical questions and then immediately restrain people from giving you the correct answer.

[tvbcof]

Not a real big deal.  The system would freeze with values in place until it could be started back up again in a safe and controlled manner.  The block chain, and hence the BTC balances that people hold, are more like core memory than DRAM

I've long lobbied to be prepared for such a freeze since it could be handy in a lot of scenarios.  It would be not much more than an inconvenience if people didn't panic.  If they did it could well be terminal for Bitcoin.  Especially if there is worthy competition around.  OTOH, if there is worthy competition a wide spread panic and subsequent decline might be the best thing that ever happened.  Who knows.

Re-phrased, a bitcoin mining problem/freeze and a dirty bomb are very similar.  The risks and damage are negligible but the panic they could cause could be quite devastating.

[God]

If all mining stops and say one guy starts to mine, the difficulty would make it so that this lone guy would not find any valid blocks until the difficulty changes. Supposedly difficulty changes every Every 2016 blocks. So he would never find the remaining blocks for a difficulty change to happen (it would be tens of thousands of years). There would be no confirmations until quite a bit of people start mining again. Just my friends and I would not be enough to even keep Bitcoin alive.

[jonald_fyookball]

All miners shutting down is virtual impossibility due to the profit opportunity growing in direct proportion to any shutdown starting