What if a large number of miners were suddenly forced to shut down?

[cbeast]

Anything catastrophic enough to shut down Bitcoin would disrupt global civilization. Martial law would dictate most of your daily activities. Depending on how long it takes to restore the internet, you might want to consider bargaining for protection under a well armed warlord.

Things are not quite that black and white.

Bitcoin would be disrupted easily. For example, if intercontinental Internet connections were lost for just few hours (actually minutes would probably do the trick), we would have a huge forking issue which would be well enough to bring Bitcoin usage to a halt.
 
Hardly a case that would cause martial law and full chaos.

- Jyri
--
Altcoin.Center

If is for children.

[altcoin.center]

If is for children.

Well that sounds clever to me.

"Things are the way I believe they are and no surprises will ever happen", right?

- Jyri
--
Altcoin.Center

[cbeast]

If is for children.

Well that sounds clever to me.

"Things are the way I believe they are and no surprises will ever happen", right?

- Jyri
--
Altcoin.Center

if intercontinental Internet connections were lost

That's a big if. Besides, all it would take is a few radio or satellite links to patch the blockchain when cables were cut. The blockchain and its watchdogs would still recognize the work.

[bajlox]

Only it will take to much time and some1 here mentioned it that some old rigs will be activated.

Crazy. But funny.

[azguard]

Summary so far:

•It would take a long time.
•Difficulty would take a long time to readjust.
•Old miners get reactivated.
•Impossible!
•It is possible.
•There are alternative transmission mediums.
•Planet of the apes.

Nice list you have here. Last one is good BTW.
Interesting some thing may occur even sooner.

[blackbird307]

This is one of the many reasons why I am so against ASICs. You have a smaller distribution, creating farms, while also creating critcal point of failures in the network during an occurrence. This aside from the fact that you hit a silicone ceiling with Moors law.

[Lauda]

Most EMP strikes are trivial to defend against with a properly grounded Faraday cage. Many datacenters are protected against EMP's as well.

Can your power grid handle a Solar flare of X-Class higher than 40? Do you know, that it will happen one day, and will be aimed directly at us? Do you also know it has happened in the late 19th century, but thankfully back then we were not as advanced as we are now.

Well it is pointless to discuss in such a thread. Its purpose is to spread fear among the people who use Bitcoin. Some don't even understand what such a Solar flare would do. Some even made threads before asking what would happen to Bitcoin in such a scenario.  

Interesting thing: it's very rare to see an older member (those who are here since the beginning)  make such a thread (I myself haven't seen one).

[Flashman]

By the way, big mines are moving close to cheap power sources. Ergo, not so many miles of transmission line between them and power, ergo, could be first facilities to be back up after large scale grid disruption.

[petersiddle98]

95% of miners are suddenly offline.
Be it a new law or an EMP strike. What would happen to bitcoin? 

Pretty sure the bitcoin price would crash badly, the 5% of the miners now owns 20x more bitcoin, they would most likely sell immediately.

[ScryptAsic]

If is for children.

Well that sounds clever to me.

"Things are the way I believe they are and no surprises will ever happen", right?

- Jyri
--
Altcoin.Center

if intercontinental Internet connections were lost

That's a big if. Besides, all it would take is a few radio or satellite links to patch the blockchain when cables were cut. The blockchain and its watchdogs would still recognize the work.

This could result in a larger percentage of orphaned blocks as there tends to be more latency when dealing with satellites then fiber optic transmission lines. This however would not affect the network hashrate (some miners may decide to stop mining because of the lower EV of the result of the higher percentage of orphaned blocks, but not enough to make a major difference)

[bornil267645]

bitcoin verification will take eternity. come to think of it, do the miners get abducted?

[altcoin.center]

That's a big if. Besides, all it would take is a few radio or satellite links to patch the blockchain when cables were cut. The blockchain and its watchdogs would still recognize the work.

You have a very positive idea about how the Internet and the companies operating it work.

I'm not quite sure you understand the amounts of traffic that would needed to be diverted over satellite links - we're talking huge fiber connections. It's also not just a simple matter of few key presses; the underlying infrastructure is complex and there are many companies and other entities operating it. It's not like in the movies where good willing tech agents get things going in a blink of an eye.

Also, satellites are the first thing to go if a big CME hits.

You're free to keep your views - I'm not trying to change that. What I am saying though is that those views are not facts and as far as I can tell they are not based on facts either.

- Jyri
--
Altcoin.Center

[altcoin.center]

If is for children.

Well that sounds clever to me.

"Things are the way I believe they are and no surprises will ever happen", right?

- Jyri
--
Altcoin.Center

if intercontinental Internet connections were lost

That's a big if. Besides, all it would take is a few radio or satellite links to patch the blockchain when cables were cut. The blockchain and its watchdogs would still recognize the work.

This could result in a larger percentage of orphaned blocks as there tends to be more latency when dealing with satellites then fiber optic transmission lines. This however would not affect the network hashrate (some miners may decide to stop mining because of the lower EV of the result of the higher percentage of orphaned blocks, but not enough to make a major difference)

Yes. If (hehe;) there would be such backup links available at all (i.e. satellites would be working), if the traffic could be rerouted over those satellite links (despite the limitations in the bandwidth satellites can provide), and so forth.

The block chain system itself is rather tolerant and adaptive, but only as long as the underlying network has at least decent amount of functionality. Should something as disruptive as a massive CME or, say, an underwater volcanic eruption happen that would disconnect whole continents from each other for prolonged periods of time, then it's virtually unavoidable that forking would occur.

There certainly are lots of ifs in this game. However, ignoring them and assuming things will just stroll along nicely is not what would be considered "wise" by anyone who has any understanding of risk assessment. It's a known fact (not a possibility) that scenarios like Carrington's event will play out eventually. What we do not yet know is how the modern infrastructure will be able to cope with that. Informed individuals and specialists have a clear consensus that it is most likely that there will be big disruptions in both delivery of electricity and functionality of the communications networks. Satellites are particularly vulnerable to anything that creates chaos such as high ionization in the atmosphere.

- Jyri
--
Altcoin.Center

[ScryptAsic]

If is for children.

Well that sounds clever to me.

"Things are the way I believe they are and no surprises will ever happen", right?

- Jyri
--
Altcoin.Center

if intercontinental Internet connections were lost

That's a big if. Besides, all it would take is a few radio or satellite links to patch the blockchain when cables were cut. The blockchain and its watchdogs would still recognize the work.

This could result in a larger percentage of orphaned blocks as there tends to be more latency when dealing with satellites then fiber optic transmission lines. This however would not affect the network hashrate (some miners may decide to stop mining because of the lower EV of the result of the higher percentage of orphaned blocks, but not enough to make a major difference)

Yes. If (hehe;) there would be such backup links available at all (i.e. satellites would be working), if the traffic could be rerouted over those satellite links (despite the limitations in the bandwidth satellites can provide), and so forth.

The block chain system itself is rather tolerant and adaptive, but only as long as the underlying network has at least decent amount of functionality. Should something as disruptive as a massive CME or, say, an underwater volcanic eruption happen that would disconnect whole continents from each other for prolonged periods of time, then it's virtually unavoidable that forking would occur.

There certainly are lots of ifs in this game. However, ignoring them and assuming things will just stroll along nicely is not what would be considered "wise" by anyone who has any understanding of risk assessment. It's a known fact (not a possibility) that scenarios like Carrington's event will play out eventually. What we do not yet know is how the modern infrastructure will be able to cope with that. Informed individuals and specialists have a clear consensus that it is most likely that there will be big disruptions in both delivery of electricity and functionality of the communications networks. Satellites are particularly vulnerable to anything that creates chaos such as high ionization in the atmosphere.

- Jyri
--
Altcoin.Center

Well thinking about it a little bit, I would say that the undersea internet cables would probably go down well after satellites go down. Sure there could be some kind of underwater volcanic activity however this would probably not knock out all of the underwater communications lines, it would probably make the remaining internet infrastructure more strained and potentially increase latency. They are however, to my understanding build to withstand a lot

[Flashman]

Yah, I think undersea cables would be least of worries for sunspot zap. Firstly the large majority are fibreoptic now, and secondly even a few feet of water is a fairly effective screen, so even copper would be protected from picking up stray RF.

It's probably pretty much the above surface infrastructure that would take the damage. However, fibre is the go to for that nowadays, and if all the ends are in EMP resistant well shielded data centers, it's only really the local "last mile" bits that are on copper, and could pick up RF.... and of that.. any that are cable TV coax are probably more resistant than UTP, BUT, more UTP is underground than coax so might be a bit of a wash.

[ScryptAsic]

Yah, I think undersea cables would be least of worries for sunspot zap. Firstly the large majority are fibreoptic now, and secondly even a few feet of water is a fairly effective screen, so even copper would be protected from picking up stray RF.

Plus the water is able to effectively block solar waves. If you get deep enough in the ocean, it will be pitch black (assuming no light sources with you).

I don't think many of the undersea internet cables are made of copper anymore, they are most likely mostly made of fiber-optics.

[Beliathon]

95% of miners are suddenly offline.
Be it a new law or an EMP strike. What would happen to bitcoin?  

It would suddenly (and briefly) become extremely profitable to mine and every person with any mining ability (from videocard to asic) would mine.

The system would adapt and within days if not hours it would be back to previous hashrate.

[newuser01]

95% of miners are suddenly offline.
Be it a new law or an EMP strike. What would happen to bitcoin? 

I would start mining with everything I have. (after the difficulty correction)

[djokica]

95% of miners are suddenly offline.
Be it a new law or an EMP strike. What would happen to bitcoin? 

Price will go up i suppose but i dont know now we sell all those coin. EMP would blast not just miners also servers for exchanges.

[azguard]

95% of miners are suddenly offline.
Be it a new law or an EMP strike. What would happen to bitcoin? 

I would start mining with everything I have. (after the difficulty correction)

Nice you will mine.

Price will go up i suppose but i dont know now we sell all those coin.

My tough the same price in this scenario will be who hows how much.