Would Bitcoin Survive A Nuclear War?

[ChiBitCTy]

It all depends on what type of nuclear war we have. There’s a huge difference between a small and large scale nuclear war. It’s possible only one or two nukes are shot and everyone then comes to their senses, but it’s also possible (and in my opinion, more likely) that the it’s a much more fierce nuclear war, which then could easily dispel all life forever. So obviously bitcoin wouldn’t survive lol.

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[care2yak]

What do you think about it? I read this article in the Market Times https://markettimes.co.uk/cryptocurrencies/would-bitcoin-survive-a-nuclear-war/ and in my opinion I don't see a future 'cause to have access to the bitcoin you need internet

The question was, would bitcoin survive a nuclear war? And Nick Szabo and Ralph Merkle stated that it would. And I agree that bitcoin will, because bitcoin is a coded system that does not just die or gets wiped out or erased all of a sudden becasue that's not how it was designed. And if a nuclear war happens -- let's all pray that it won't come to that -- if a nuclear war happens, there are still parts of the world that will have srvers running and computers running, so access and use of cybernetics and the internet will continue.

I think that was what Ralph Merkle was meaning to say. It's all theoretical. And unless everything on earth gets wiped out by the war, meaning even those flying war jets, subs, and operating nuclear armaments -- which by the way are now all using gps, satellites, and involve use of the net, then theoretically, everything will be off but the code and system will still be there and if by some miracle, survivors surface then the moment they turn on servers and computers, will the bitcoin protocol go live again.

The next question then is that would anyone use bitcoin when basic necessities like food and water and maybe fuel, become scarce and expensive? Will currencies even be important during those times? Maybe after a period of healing, and trade begins to flourish again then maybe bitcoin will be usable again... and so, bitcoin will still survive

[jokers10]

Bitcoin will survive, but not many people will use it. In times of war, the first thing that comes into mind are life necessities such as food, water, and shelter. Money is out of the picture. You can bet a nuclear disaster would reduce the number of nodes on the BTC blockchain (effectively making it less secure against external attacks). I suppose we're close to seeing a full-scale nuclear war (WW3?), especially when Putin have been threating Ukraine to use nuclear weapons against it (although he has soften its stance lately).

It's a dangerous world we're living today, where anything can happen in a blink of an eye. We should enjoy Bitcoin while it lasts. Who knows how many years (or months) do we have left before the whole human race goes extinct because of a large-scale nuclear war? Just my opinion

Current state of affairs is definitely not so inspiring but I doubt that a total nuclear war is going to be: there are many safety systems aimed to prevent this. What we are worried about at the moment is a local usage of nuclear arms and effects from it. And it is really terrifying. Hope this will never happen.

So nuclear war can be not only total (hope none will happen) and effects on Bitcoin will differ basing on the problem. In the worst case humanity will be gone but some copies of Bitcoin will be saved and so Bitcoin can even see out all humanity. It will lost its utility but still will exist.

[yohananaomi]

What do you think about it? I read this article in the Market Times https://markettimes.co.uk/cryptocurrencies/would-bitcoin-survive-a-nuclear-war/ and in my opinion I don't see a future 'cause to have access to the bitcoin you need internet

If a world war starts and one of those old farts remembers to use nukes, it will not be only Bitcoin that will be disappearing. It will be the end of the world as we know it. Bitcoin would be the least of your concerns in the that scenario...

it is clear that in a war situation there will be many obstacles that will be ahead, it is certain that everyone will no longer think about bitcoin and everything, because everyone will be focused on the war. not yet with the possibility that the internet network also cannot run normally and there will be no transactions or anything to be able to make bitcoin transactions.
obviously any war will affect bitcoin especially if it comes to using nuclear which will obviously destroy world civilization and where there are bitcoins in it, everything will disappear from the face of the earth.

[Pmalek]

What would you be purchasing with your bitcoin following a nuclear disaster and who would be interested in taking it?

Let's forget the millions of casualties from the explosions, and the millions who will die in the aftermaths. The disastrous effects on internet, electricity grids, and telecommunications would leave you with no way to access your coins. The survivors would be looking for clean water, food, clothes, and medicine in a world that is poisoned by nuclear radiation. These things will gain in value and become the means of exchange and not a digital currency that requires internet (that does no longer work) and devices like computers or phones (that no longer work without electricity). It would be a surprising new world learning that your huge 4K TV with an OLED screen is now worth just a bottle of 1 liter of fresh water.     

[Yatsan]

What do you think about it? I read this article in the Market Times https://markettimes.co.uk/cryptocurrencies/would-bitcoin-survive-a-nuclear-war/ and in my opinion I don't see a future 'cause to have access to the bitcoin you need internet

If a world war starts and one of those old farts remembers to use nukes, it will not be only Bitcoin that will be disappearing. It will be the end of the world as we know it. Bitcoin would be the least of your concerns in the that scenario...

it is clear that in a war situation there will be many obstacles that will be ahead, it is certain that everyone will no longer think about bitcoin and everything, because everyone will be focused on the war. not yet with the possibility that the internet network also cannot run normally and there will be no transactions or anything to be able to make bitcoin transactions.
obviously any war will affect bitcoin especially if it comes to using nuclear which will obviously destroy world civilization and where there are bitcoins in it, everything will disappear from the face of the earth.

To put it simple, people would mind surving and living more than anything else. During a war, monetary systems or money itself will be useless because a total havoc is more likely to occur. This includes Bitcoin and other virtual currency. It will remain on your wallet but it would more likely have no value because there won't be a demand on it. So it will just be something of an amount which would be useless during those times, which I hope won't happen in the future. The market and economy will recover but expect that after a war, there would be years before majority of destroyed establishments be restored.

[Inwestour]

If this happens, then not only bitcoin will lose its value, but most likely fiat money and maybe even gold will lose their original value, it will depend on the damage that will be done to the planet. But in general, I agree with the previous posts, the values for people will be completely different, these are food, clean water, medicines, warm housing, everything else will not be important.

[Ryker1]

What would you be purchasing with your bitcoin following a nuclear disaster and who would be interested in taking it?

Let's forget the millions of casualties from the explosions, and the millions who will die in the aftermaths. The disastrous effects on internet, electricity grids, and telecommunications would leave you with no way to access your coins. The survivors would be looking for clean water, food, clothes, and medicine in a world that is poisoned by nuclear radiation. These things will gain in value and become the means of exchange and not a digital currency that requires internet (that does no longer work) and devices like computers or phones (that no longer work without electricity). It would be a surprising new world learning that your huge 4K TV with an OLED screen is now worth just a bottle of 1 liter of fresh water.     

Well I totally agree with you --it is a common necessity that humans looking after there is a disastrous effect and perhaps no one will have an interest in digital currency or even fiat at that time does not have value --the most important is food supplies and medications for the disaster. It could be back to traditional trading of commodities if this will happen. But I won't scratch my head thinking about this which is a rare case or impossible to happen. It is indeed bitcoin will perhaps useful if there is an internet connection restored.

[AicecreaME]

if the whole wide world gets destroyed, the air and the whole surroundings are contaminated of radiations and other chemical that came from the blasts. what's the point of Bitcoin and other currency. For sure if there are stores that survives the nuclear war, it will be stolen by people and the owner of it can't stop those hungry people from getting the food. Survivors would be back to the traditional way of getting food, building houses, making fire, and other survival skills that are needed.

Any type of currency or even Bitcoin will be forgotten for some time before people would start to use it again if we are going to survive the nuclear war if it ever happens in the future (let's hope not).

[jokers10]

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Any type of currency or even Bitcoin will be forgotten for some time before people would start to use it again if we are going to survive the nuclear war if it ever happens in the future (let's hope not).

Since currencies were popular from the earliest times I doubt that idea of money will become unuseful even in case of a global catastrophe. Bitcoin can be too complicated for usage and existing fiat currencies too insignificant but something like money cowry will be used anyway as it is very convenient to have a unified equivalent.

[DaveF]

There was an article about what would be worth 'money' after 'the end of the world' and it did have some interesting conclusions.

Gold, silver and a bunch of 'precious' metals would become just about worthless.

Copper would be worth a lot since if anyone could get some form of power generation working copper wire works best and lasts a really long time.

Iron and Steel would be worth something for shelter construction, but since there is so much of it not a lot

Rhodium, titanium and such would skyrocket in value for a bit. But once all the tech needed to work it died it would drop off.

Bitcoin, credit cards, anything that needs tech to work becomes worthless.

Flammable gasses are valuable. As in some of the most valuable after the end of the world.

Gasoline / Petrol in general becomes worth a lot quickly, but unlike 'Mad Max World' falls in value just as quickly.

Clean water would be valuable for a while, but as people migrated to where it's sources are it drops.

-Dave

[Habakkuk Swen]

I think no because if a nuclear bomb hits, it would create nuclear dust, which would prevent people from using solar energy, and there would be further shortages of energy as a result. The biggest problem with Bitcoin itself is that it uses a Proof-of-Work consensus mechanism, which consumes a huge amount of energy.

[Pigo Piou]

Even in the circumstances of a global power outage, Bitcoin would still be able to survive thanks to a distributed network system uses (there are servers in all corners of the world that maintain the entire Bitcoin network, so destroying the entire network at once is quite an issue).

[DaNNy001]

This is an intriguing question which the answer we already know is NO bitcoin can never survive in nuclear war. Imagine the world as it is today happens to experience such a devastating case such as war been fought with nuke , i think it will cause chaos and many things will be destroyed like school bank and so much more.  War is never a thing to wish for it is hard for a nation to recover from the cold hands of war and this type of war is going to affect everyone in the world. Bitcoin needs people and internet for its proper coordination and this war will affect everything that has to do human like water supply, the internet , and people will need fiat currency more in times of the war because everyone will be looking to survive not to invest in btc.
So bitcoin Will definitely not survive if there's a nuclear war

[n0ne]

It is really hard to answer, however we can stay positive such thing won't happen again in any part of the world. The world have experienced the reality and the pain of nuclear weapon. Even now people of specific region are experiencing the severity. We need to find way through bitcoin to have inner peace. In financial management we've already achieved it using bitcoin. For a nuclear weapon bitcoin won't survive, but such incident won happen forever.

[mendace]

What do you think about it? I read this article in the Market Times https://markettimes.co.uk/cryptocurrencies/would-bitcoin-survive-a-nuclear-war/ and in my opinion I don't see a future 'cause to have access to the bitcoin you need internet

Bitcoin is resilient and can withstand a nuclear catastrophe because it is distributed so a nuclear war cannot destroy the entire planet.  Let us remember that there are also nodes in space within satellites and that is not all, even if a war were to cut the internet connection of one or more countries, even in that case we have the satellite network.

[Abiky]

This is an intriguing question which the answer we already know is NO bitcoin can never survive in nuclear war. Imagine the world as it is today happens to experience such a devastating case such as war been fought with nuke , i think it will cause chaos and many things will be destroyed like school bank and so much more.  War is never a thing to wish for it is hard for a nation to recover from the cold hands of war and this type of war is going to affect everyone in the world. Bitcoin needs people and internet for its proper coordination and this war will affect everything that has to do human like water supply, the internet , and people will need fiat currency more in times of the war because everyone will be looking to survive not to invest in btc.
So bitcoin Will definitely not survive if there's a nuclear war

Bitcoin would still be able to survive a nuclear war due to its distributed nature. But the vast majority of the people worldwide won't use it because they will be thinking on how to survive. Food, shelter, and other life necessities will go above Bitcoin, Fiat, Gold, and anything else. While a full-scale nuclear war is highly unlikely, we should be prepared for the worse just in case.

If we're worried about Bitcoin's survival, then we could simply host nodes across space. Bitcoin could have nodes and miners on the Moon, as well as, Mars (if there's enough funding to make it happen). For what I know, the sky is the limit. We should enjoy Bitcoin while it lasts. Who knows what the future holds for the cryptocurrency? Just my thoughts

[dezoel]

Technically speaking it depends on the surviving amount of people. Nuclear war is something that may destroy all life on earth at a certain level, which means if there are no humans then there is no bitcoin, as well.

However, if there are enough people left, and if all of those people are not cancer ridden (nuclear war distributes radiation, which causes cancer) then one way or another bitcoin could survive as well if we can keep the internet going. Basically it all depends on the amount of people left, and how big is the war. That will decide on everything else and that will make sure that it will go smoothly afterwards, or just good old walking dead style or not.

[Miracle Wizzard]

If a nuclear war stroke, the banking and monetary systems would be devastated, saying nothing of fiat, which would be significantly devalued by the war. This does not exist for decentralized Bitcoin.

[panganib999]

What do you think about it? I read this article in the Market Times https://markettimes.co.uk/cryptocurrencies/would-bitcoin-survive-a-nuclear-war/ and in my opinion I don't see a future 'cause to have access to the bitcoin you need internet

Due to its decentralized nature, as long as the internet remains relevant and we are still able to access it bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies will still be available for use. Bitcoin could and would survive a nuclear war long as there's people who would still be able to use it of course, and as long as the internet, or at least parts of it are still intact.

If a nuclear war stroke, the banking and monetary systems would be devastated, saying nothing of fiat, which would be significantly devalued by the war. This does not exist for decentralized Bitcoin.

I don't think monetary system would collapse, in my opinion it would become stronger than ever because money would be the biggest currency of the war, alongside soldiers and military prowess. Countless wars are won because you have money, I don't think this would not be the case even if a nuclear war stuck the planet. People will still find ways to use fiat just like the bottle caps on Fallout.