What will happen to the Bitcoin network if Russia blocks access to the internet?

[BenjaminGlover]

Russia is considering shutting down the internet connection to the rest of the globe. What will occur? Is the hash rate decreasing? What will happen if the connection is re-established in a few years?

[franky1]

2% of nodes/ maybe 20% of miners..(if a russian internet ban includes kazahkstan)
 that is all..

[Dunamisx]

Russia is considering shutting down the internet connection to the rest of the globe. What will occur? Is the hash rate decreasing? What will happen if the connection is re-established in a few years?

All these are part of the effect of the SWIFT ban place on Russia and the whole economy there is downsizing and even users of centralized crypto exchanges account are experiencing ban as about 25000 coinbase user accounts were placed on ban, all international connections Russia has build in the past were been nullified, Russia war given a sound and clear warning before looming into fight against Ukraine. The thing is that those suffering it are the masses who has nothing to do with war, all their businesses have been affected and halted, with or without Russia cryptocurrency still move on steadily just that the innocent citizens who are into crypto will bear the cost after being affected.

[_act_]

Russia is considering shutting down the internet connection to the rest of the globe. What will occur? Is the hash rate decreasing? What will happen if the connection is re-established in a few years?

Is Russia the country supplying internet to the world? No. Russia depends on the world than the world depends on Russia. Without Russia, bitcoin will existing, even if the whole of Russia ban bitcoin just like China, bitcoin will still be existing. I do not know what could be worse than when China banned bitcoin but yet bitcoin adoption continues.

[fzkto]

If Russia blocks the external internet, mining will become impossible in this country. But I know that already now many people involved in cryptocurrency and mining are leaving the country. So if there is a shutdown, by that time the main powers will have already moved to neighbouring countries like Kazakhstan or Georgia. In the last week alone, about 30k people have left for Georgia, mostly from the it sector.

[o_e_l_e_o]

If there is no communication whatsoever between Russia and the rest of the world (highly unlikely), then the network will fork. The main chain the rest of the world follows will lose the Russian hashrate, resulting in longer block times for a maximum of two weeks until the next difficulty retarget. After that, things would continue as normal. The Russian miners would either stop mining altogether or continue to mine on their own minority chain. Once internet communication is reestablished, then either the minority chain would simply be abandoned in favor of the main chain from the rest of the world, or the minority chain would continue as yet another fork of bitcoin.

What is far more likely is that there would still be a handful of nodes which could still communicate to both sides of the divide, and so the whole network would stay in sync. Users in Russia might see more frequent stale blocks and stale chains if it takes them significantly longer to remain synced with the rest of the network.

[Woodie]

If Russia blocks its internet then the people who are in the country will not have access to their crypto assets but coins will remain as is provided no other person has access to these guys private keys. But why would th these guys want to go this route... Are they avoiding to hear what the world has to say about their trespass??

[goldkingcoiner]

As much as I understand the Bitcoin network, it would basically just adjust the difficulty appropriately and it would become easier to mine the rest of the Bitcoin. As far as price goes, I think, unless demand for Bitcoin goes up, we will see more supply with a stable demand. So this and we would also definitely see a lot of FUD and that would scare the price down. But there is no point in speculating just yet. Bitcoin is, was and always will be a safe bet as an investment option. Even if WW3 were to break out.

So, no worries just yet.

[pooya87]

Russia is considering shutting down the internet connection to the rest of the globe.

Where did you get that from?

The news I heard was that Russia is banning the social media and other sites that banned Russia in a 69 act when they started censoring everything that came out of Russia that was negating their propaganda.

What will occur? Is the hash rate decreasing? What will happen if the connection is re-established in a few years?

It won't happen but even if it did bitcoin wouldn't care since it is a global currency that is not originating from a single place.

[ABCbits]

The Russian miners would either stop mining altogether or continue to mine on their own minority chain.

Mining would be impossible since their hashrate percentage is rather small. But it's different case if someone propose hard fork which add Emergency Difficulty Adjustment (EDA).

What is far more likely is that there would still be a handful of nodes which could still communicate to both sides of the divide, and so the whole network would stay in sync.

I agree, i expect there are few brave people who risk using satellite internet (which is harder to be blocked/controlled).

[PrivacyG]

If there is no communication whatsoever between Russia and the rest of the world (highly unlikely), then the network will fork. The main chain the rest of the world follows will lose the Russian hashrate, resulting in longer block times for a maximum of two weeks until the next difficulty retarget. After that, things would continue as normal. The Russian miners would either stop mining altogether or continue to mine on their own minority chain. Once internet communication is reestablished, then either the minority chain would simply be abandoned in favor of the main chain from the rest of the world, or the minority chain would continue as yet another fork of bitcoin.

What is far more likely is that there would still be a handful of nodes which could still communicate to both sides of the divide, and so the whole network would stay in sync. Users in Russia might see more frequent stale blocks and stale chains if it takes them significantly longer to remain synced with the rest of the network.

What if Russia, like some of the rumors say, will disconnect from the global network and continue with a separate network of their own rather than just censoring and blocking our side of the Internet?

If theirs become a completely separate type of Internet, could that not mean Bitcoin will continue to exist but.. twice?  Like a clone of the real one but in Russia without the possibility of communication between the two?  As if once the separation begins, we lose the Russian hashrate and they lose the rest of the world's and continue to function under the name of 'Bitcoin' although separately.  Since our network is different from theirs, they can not 'see' our Bitcoin and we can not 'see' theirs.  Pretty much like we would simulate the recreation of Bitcoin on a local network.  Is this possible, or is it possible just in my imagination?

-
Regards,
PrivacyG

[tranthidung]

If anything bad happens in Russia for Bitcoin network, effect would be smaller than what happened with China mining crackdown months ago. Because the hashrate from Russia is smaller than from China.

Think different like this. If the Western world do more serious sanctions on Russia, do you think their government will ignore Bitcoin mining for their benefit? They have huge land to set up mining farms, huge power supply from oil and more. They won't easily to kill themselves by saying no to Bitcoin. We can not identify what actually happen in Russia just like in China and reported hashrate can not tell us exact geographical locations of hashrate origins.

[FIFA worldcup]

If there is no communication whatsoever between Russia and the rest of the world (highly unlikely), then the network will fork. The main chain the rest of the world follows will lose the Russian hashrate, resulting in longer block times for a maximum of two weeks until the next difficulty retarget. After that, things would continue as normal. The Russian miners would either stop mining altogether or continue to mine on their own minority chain. Once internet communication is reestablished, then either the minority chain would simply be abandoned in favor of the main chain from the rest of the world, or the minority chain would continue as yet another fork of bitcoin.

What is far more likely is that there would still be a handful of nodes which could still communicate to both sides of the divide, and so the whole network would stay in sync. Users in Russia might see more frequent stale blocks and stale chains if it takes them significantly longer to remain synced with the rest of the network.

Since there will be the main chain and a side chain, would it be possible for some evil people to double spend or try to manipulate because of the lack of communication between the two chains? Previously when china miners shutdown their system, there were no fork problems 

[jackg]

Since there will be the main chain and a side chain, would it be possible for some evil people to double spend or try to manipulate because of the lack of communication between the two chains? Previously when china miners shutdown their system, there were no fork problems 

The chains would hopefully be made incompatible so this couldn't happen but it likely wouldn't anyway (the Russian chain would remain quite a bit behind).

If the forms are left as compatible main et chains though, the Russian version would not exist once it gets reconnected with other nodes and all of their transactions would be removed from the chain (though there's a chance someone with an archive would be able to push them all into confirming on the main chain).


If Russia disconnects itself from the internet then I think they'll face a lot of negative consequences (not only with bitcoin but with engineering and other advancements too). If they leave even a tiny part of their Internet open and accessible though, it'll probably end up being used by a lot more and in a lot of ways Russia wouldn't be expecting (like how the great firewall of China doesn't really work that well).

[o_e_l_e_o]

If theirs become a completely separate type of Internet, could that not mean Bitcoin will continue to exist but.. twice?

Not quite. The main chain for the rest of the world will still be bitcoin. Whether or not the Russian chain would also be bitcoin would depend on what they do.

If the Russians change nothing about their network and just continue to mine, they will fall well behind the rest of the network. As ETFbitcoin has pointed out, mining in Russia would initially be incredibly difficult and the block time would be huge since they would be mining at the same difficulty with a small proportion of the global hashrate. They can do this, though, and simply generate a chain which is both shorter and has far less proof of work. If they choose to do this, then if there is ever communication between the two sides again (before any major new developments in the global bitcoin network) then their chain would lose to the main chain and simply be abandoned by all their nodes.

The other option is that they deliberate make their chain incompatible with the main chain (such as by forking to a new difficulty algorithm) which means if there was every a communication between the two sides in the future, their bitcoin fork would continue to exist as a fork of bitcoin.

Bitcoin would not exist twice. Either they fork to a different network, or they mine a chain split with the risk of their entire history disappearing at any time.

Since there will be the main chain and a side chain, would it be possible for some evil people to double spend or try to manipulate because of the lack of communication between the two chains?

Absolutely. It would be a big risk for anyone on the minority chain (Russia). If someone had access to both networks, they could spend the same coins on each network. When the two networks reconnect and the minority chain is abandoned, then any transactions made within the Russian chain would simply no longer exist.

[lesyKing]

The impact of a country's policy on the bitcoin is small in the long run. The short-term impact will gradually disappear, just like China's policy last year. Isn't it good now?

[darkangel11]

I've talked with a guy from Russia and he said more or less that an Internet ban if anything like that ever happens will not change much in Russia because the society can be divided in two groups:
people who never had a computer and don't care if it is there or not
people who are in the Internet for 8+ hours a day and these know how to use VPN and will still have access.

Russia will never go full retard to physically cut all the cables. The elites want to know what's going on but also want their subjects and servants to live in the dark ages. They will only restrict access and this won't stop people just like arresting TPB founders did not stop torrents.

[franky1]

If there is no communication whatsoever between Russia and the rest of the world (highly unlikely), then the network will fork. The main chain the rest of the world follows will lose the Russian hashrate, resulting in longer block times for a maximum of two weeks until the next difficulty retarget.

not really the case, it just means any russians making blocks are not seen, meaning that other nations mining pools get to submit their block result, meaning more rewards for the other nations to share with one less competitor nation
(less people at the party = more slices to pizza to eat amongst the smaller group)

imagine it this way
if there are 10 olympic runners each averaging a time of 9.5-10.5 seconds in a 100metre run.. only 1 can win
take one person off the track does not make the other runners run slower. it just means the chances of the 9 remaining runners winning increases. the average win is still the same average. but now 9 people get more wins when they run regularly

what does cause a speed up or slowdown. is if each of the runners are using more or less muscle(asics) then previous fortnight. meaning the average time over a fortnight has changed to be more or less then the needed average.

taking one competitor out of the race does not impact the speed of the other runners.
if one runner doesnt turn up. the other runners dont suddenly walk the 100m out of compassion for a lost competitor. the other runners still run at their same average speed. and now get a higher chance of winning per race

infact, with the remaining runners winning more often they can afford to build more muscle(asics) and run more faster. so the speed of solves can happen more faster.
OR they can enjoy their easier wins and tone down some muscle(asics) and run more casually. and decrease their speed

I've talked with a guy from Russia and he said more or less that an Internet ban if anything like that ever happens will not change much in Russia because the society can be divided in two groups:
people who never had a computer and don't care if it is there or not
people who are in the Internet for 8+ hours a day and these know how to use VPN and will still have access.

Russia will never go full retard to physically cut all the cables. The elites want to know what's going on but also want their subjects and servants to live in the dark ages. They will only restrict access and this won't stop people just like arresting TPB founders did not stop torrents.

here is the thing.
if putin wanted to, he could stop the citizen serving ISP's, meaning even if you have a VPN its useless if your router cant even connect to your ISP
whilst still allowing a public sector ISP to service the inner government routers

its not about IP banning certain sites. its about turning off ISP's that citizens subscribe to and have a landline/cellular network connection to that can be switched off.

i doubt putin would stretch that far to P!55 off all his citizens, but then again other countries have(kazahkstan fuel riots). so i wouldnt put it past him

[Webetcoins]

Nothing serious would happening, except that Russia would be left in the dark. Yeah, I know that some people would be expecting Bitcoin and whatever they are thinking, but man, Bitcoin has survived so many tough times in the past, so what would make this one any different?

Yes, there are lots of miners there as of lately, that’s true, and we do know that it would affect the hashrate of course. But, these are not going to be some kind of permanent issue to the Bitcoin network. Within a short time things are still going to change, and even if the price should drop (which would be just a bit) because of that, it would still pick up quickly for sure.

[Marvelman]

Even if Putin blocked all ISPs in the country, there would still be other ways to communicate with the Internet, right? I mean, I don't know exactly how it works technically, but unless all the phone connections to the rest of the world are cut off, people could still use other ISPs from neighboring countries? And how about satellites, or other forms of radiowave communication?