What happens when mining and nodes stop working

[Grace333]

Greetings to you all

During my research and findings, I discovered Bitcoin was created for the purpose of breaking the barrier between using a third party be it trusted or not as a mediator in any financial transaction. And third party in our traditional financial system is the banks which help in safe keeping of our funds and also help in running transactions when requested for. However it is usually said that Bitcoin do not have a third party issuance unlike traditional banks, but from my findings I've come to notice that nodes and miners are actually third parties in the network. Without them there would be no confirmed transaction or new coins running into existence. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Although it's almost impossible for all nodes and miners to stop working, but let's say it eventually happened fictionally, what would be the outcome? Is is there something I'm missing???

[ranochigo]

Then Bitcoin is worthless because no blocks can be mined and no transactions would go through. Bitcoin is decentralized and can be considered as having a high redunancy. For a catastrophic failure to happen is nearly impossible, but if it does then Bitcoin would be worthless.

[Charles-Tim]

However it is usually said that Bitcoin do not have a third party issuance unlike traditional banks, but from my findings I've come to notice that nodes and miners are actually third parties in the network. Without them there would be no confirmed transaction or new coins running into existence. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Nodes and miners do not hold or keep your coins. Miners mine new blocks, earning bitcoin from the new blocks and transaction fees. Nodes earn nothing than making the network more decentralized and having privacy. None of them have your coins unlike banks that keep your coins for you.

What is similar to banks are custodial wallets, custodial exchanges wallets and other custodial platforms. But they are all not part of bitcoin network.

Although it's almost impossible for all nodes and miners to stop working, but let's say it eventually happened fictionally, what would be the outcome? Is is there something I'm missing???

This will be the end of bitcoin. This can happen if the world is destroyed.

[Faisal2202]

However it is usually said that Bitcoin do not have a third party issuance unlike traditional banks, but from my findings I've come to notice that nodes and miners are actually third parties in the network. Without them there would be no confirmed transaction or new coins running into existence. Correct me if I'm wrong.

You are 90% right because without them our transactions can't be validated and added to blocks and thus total loss. But the remaining 10% where you are wrong is, that it should not be compared with banks in the context of third party. Because we own the keys thus we own the funds. But in banks, we don't own the funds as banks use them for their own good. Overall you are right these two characters play an important roles in the future of BTC.

Although it's almost impossible for all nodes and miners to stop working, but let's say it eventually happened fictionally, what would be the outcome? Is is there something I'm missing???

Hmm, fictionally, I will say no transaction will be validated, no tx will be added to the block thus no tx at all. Thus no demand and no new supply as well. A great decrement in the BTC price will come but in reality, I don't think it's going to happen any time soon. Because its not possible for all the miners and validators to go dark at once.

[hatshepsut93]

There's one big difference between "third party" and "third parties". One entity can be brought down and it itself has full control over the system. But thousands of small entities scattered across the whole globe can't be taken down, and even if someone started taking them down, new ones would emerge to replace them. Another key detail is that they are small - if Bitcoin required expensive server equipment to run, there would be much less nodes, because nodes don't make money, only miners do.

[AVE5]

I've been in such state of thought too. The bitcoin miners are actually on the derivations of facilitating on transactions issuance to ensure compulsive factors that may bridge the p2p operational network is secured in the blockchain.
But that doesn't mean that these miners are full breeds to a third parties on a p2p transaction

[hd49728]

Although it's almost impossible for all nodes and miners to stop working, but let's say it eventually happened fictionally, what would be the outcome? Is is there something I'm missing???

Bitcoin network operates with Bitcoin nodes and Bitcoin miners. If there is no Bitcoin miners, no network hashrate, the Bitcoin blockchain will be a dead one because no more new block will be found, no more new transaction will be confirmed.

Bitcoin nodes can still run their nodes but nodes can not find blocks and confirm transactions like Bitcoin miners.

You will still have your bitcoins in your wallet but you will not be able to move it to any other receiver because lack of miners to confirm transactions.

If these things happen gradually, Bitcoin network difficulty will retarget lower and lower, and you can mine Bitcoin with your PC, laptop again like years ago.

Honestly, I don't see any scenario for these things to happen.

[Apocollapse]

Then Bitcoin is worthless because no blocks can be mined and no transactions would go through.

I beg to differ, if this happen, I would say Bitcoin will not become worthless because no one can sell Bitcoin and no one can buy Bitcoin, so the price will not change.

Honestly, I don't see any scenario for these things to happen.

This scenario would happen during World War, we just don't know when it will happen, but I guess World War could happen.

Of course this problem isn't only affect Bitcoin, it will affect anything and money isn't the most important thing anymore.

[ranochigo]

I beg to differ, if this happen, I would say Bitcoin will not become worthless because no one can sell Bitcoin and no one can buy Bitcoin, so the price will not change.

It would be misleading and probably quite inaccurate to associate the last trading price to value. Or else, we can simply say any delisted coin has the value of the last trade, even if it is worthless.

The worth of Bitcoin is not determined by the actual market price, the actual worth of the coin is fluid and is inferred regardless of whether trades happens or not. In effect, not being able to trade Bitcoins would be akin to a stock where trading is frozen. If the utility is zero, then the value of that product is zero. Of course, even if you're talking about it in a speculative context, it would be far lower than the actual price.

[Aanuoluwatofunmi]

Although it's almost impossible for all nodes and miners to stop working, but let's say it eventually happened fictionally, what would be the outcome?

I believe you almost have the answer to your question from this, because nothing can stop the nodes from working since its not something that is being made centralized, a node contain same information which applies to every other viewers from across the world, mining may end when all the entire blocks had been mined completely, but with that, the network nodes continue because they cannot be altered and have protocols they work in consensus with from the blockchain technology and the bitcoin network.

[Sim_card]

Then Bitcoin is worthless because no blocks can be mined and no transactions would go through.

I beg to differ, if this happen, I would say Bitcoin will not become worthless because no one can sell Bitcoin and no one can buy Bitcoin, so the price will not change.

This is the reason why bitcoin will become worthless because it is demand and supply that determines the price of any commodity at that particular time. Like state above, this can only happen when the world is destroyed, and when the world is destroyed, who will use the bitcoin network, nobody because everything is destroyed including human. Bitcoin become valueless.

[Husires]

This happened in the early days of Bitcoin. There were times when one miner mined several blocks and one device did the mining. If this happened, the difficulty would decrease greatly and the network would stop until someone mined Bitcoin and the blocks continued to work.
The price of Bitcoin will fall sharply, and it will be more vulnerable to centralization or successful 51% attacks, but the value of Bitcoin will definitely not be so low that it reaches zero dollars.

[Upgrade00]

<snip>but from my findings I've come to notice that nodes and miners are actually third parties in the network. Without them there would be no confirmed transaction or new coins running into existence. Correct me if I'm wrong.

The difference here is you do not depend on the third party. Regulatory services like bank can seize your funds and force you to come in and submit documents. Nodes and miners cannot, they either pick up your transaction or not and with effective decentralization, if they don't pick it up someone else will.

Although it's almost impossible for all nodes and miners to stop working, but let's say it eventually happened fictionally, what would be the outcome? Is is there something I'm missing???

Transactions cannot be confirmed and the network will halt till there are miners.

[dzungmobile]

This happened in the early days of Bitcoin. There were times when one miner mined several blocks and one device did the mining. If this happened, the difficulty would decrease greatly and the network would stop until someone mined Bitcoin and the blocks continued to work.

Except it there is bomb to stop all Bitcoin miners at one day, Bitcoin network hashrate will drop gradually and network difficulty will retarget gradually each 14 days roughly and with lower hash rate, difficulty will become lower too, new blocks will still be found be smaller miner community.

However, if there is a bomb, the network will become a dead one and it will need a new recovery, reinstallation of miners massively to revive the network and find new blocks.

The price of Bitcoin will fall sharply, and it will be more vulnerable to centralization or successful 51% attacks, but the value of Bitcoin will definitely not be so low that it reaches zero dollars.

When price was too low, nobody minded to attack Bitcoin network because they possibly thought it is a joke, does not worth to attack and Bitcoin is useless, valueless or will die soon.

[Husires]

Except it there is bomb to stop all Bitcoin miners at one day, Bitcoin network hashrate will drop gradually and network difficulty will retarget gradually each 14 days roughly and with lower hash rate, difficulty will become lower too, new blocks will still be found be smaller miner community.

This problem will be, the difficulty does not change every 14 days, but rather every 2016 blocks, and until these 2016 blocks are mined, the difficulty will be so great that a block will be mined every day or week, and until the difficulty decreases, it will be impossible to broadcast a transaction unless more miners join the network.