How can Bitcoin fail?

[ranochigo]

I think the only way Bitcoin fails is if development just outright stops and people stop using it

Well the last part is pretty obvious but I think we have to look at the reasons why people would stop using it. Will something better come along? Will the price crashing to next to zero cause people to flee? Will an error or bug be found? Will governments ban or heavily regulate it to the point of breaking? Personally the biggest threat to bitcoin is a better successor arriving in my opinion. That could cause it to collapse very quickly imo.

The government part is not very logical. It is very hard or probably impossible for governments to regulate it tightly. They may be able to regulate exchanges but real life exchanges will still take place. Banning bitcoin completely is not possible unless the whole internet is shut down.
The only way for Bitcoin to fail is for everyone to delete their copy of blockchain or simply don't relay it to other nodes. This can only destroy Bitcoin if every single node dies. If there is 100 nodes with up to date blockchain, Bitcoin will not die.

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[runpaint]

well what happens when bTC is worth 40 bucks, the reward is 1 BTC and difficulty is in the trillions? ahh yes FAIL thats what happens.

That doesn't make any sense, and you don't know what you're talking about.

If the difficulty was in the trillions, then it would cost thousands of dollars in electricity to mine 1 BTC.  No miner will spend $2000 to mine 1BTC and then sell it for $40.  If miners can't pay their electricity with BTC, then some of them will stop mining, and the remaining miners will become profitable again. 

Plus, the price could never reach $40, because if the price ever hit $100 then I would borrow every penny I could get and spend it all on bitcoin.  And so would a lot of other people.

No one mining bitcoins means no transactions are being processed

"No one mining bitcoins" would mean that half this forum died in a disaster, and the rest of the world magically started hating money.

In your imagination, when no one is mining bitcoins, what happened to me and all my computers and all these piles of video cards?

If no one was mining bitcoins, then we could go back to mining with old laptops.  It's not like every asic farm in the world will simultaneously stop, so any downward trend would happen over time and the difficulty would slowly adjust. 

[pedrog]

I think the only way Bitcoin fails is if development just outright stops and people stop using it

Well the last part is pretty obvious but I think we have to look at the reasons why people would stop using it. Will something better come along? Will the price crashing to next to zero cause people to flee? Will an error or bug be found? Will governments ban or heavily regulate it to the point of breaking? Personally the biggest threat to bitcoin is a better successor arriving in my opinion. That could cause it to collapse very quickly imo.

The government part is not very logical. It is very hard or probably impossible for governments to regulate it tightly. They may be able to regulate exchanges but real life exchanges will still take place. Banning bitcoin completely is not possible unless the whole internet is shut down.
The only way for Bitcoin to fail is for everyone to delete their copy of blockchain or simply don't relay it to other nodes. This can only destroy Bitcoin if every single node dies. If there is 100 nodes with up to date blockchain, Bitcoin will not die.

Mass adoption will only occur if there are plenty of tools and exchanges, if a governments ban bitcoin or even make impossible for exchanges to do business it would be enough to jeopardize bitcoin's future, price will collapse and with it the ecosystem.

The network might still be up, and a few trades between trusted parties, but nothing like mass adoption will occur.

[Bit_Happy]

It fails if doesn't get adopted at a considerable scale, there's been a lot of investment in bitcoin start-ups with the anticipation of mass adoption, if adoption doesn't increase companies will bankrupt.

Bitcoin is too BIG to fail.
Oops, wait....
Bitcoin is off to a great start! 

[dsly]

Bitcoin will never be failed since it already succeeded.  Only way people stop using it is if it is proven to be hacked at will and nothing was safe or secure.

I was thinking along the same lines. It is already a success, I don't see it failing ever now.

[CtrlAltBernanke420]

if more and more people lose interest it will be worth less and less.  even at a nominal small value each, its still a success. 

What if bitcoin becomes what is needed as the fix..

[pecintapantai]

wohoho bitcoin will fail? no i guess bitcoin never fail enough

[redsn0w]

wohoho bitcoin will fail? no i guess bitcoin never fail enough

As I told in my previous post, the bitcoin can die if all the miners shut down their machines (but there are also another option, a massive dump, etc... ).
However I don't think all the "miners" shut down their machines instantly in the same "moment".

[dothebeats]

As long as demand is present, there is no way that bitcoin will fail. And also, if the miners shut down their miners at the same moment, transactions cannot be processed, and thus disabling the network as a whole.

[mlferro]

Hard to imagine that bitcoin may fail. But from what I've been reading on this topic it seems that this can indeed come to pass.

If it does, how will it be

[Bit_Happy]

Hard to imagine that bitcoin may fail. But from what I've been reading on this topic it seems that this can indeed come to pass.

If it does, how will it be

The Bitcoin Foundation is in position to do some damage, but I don't think Satoshi's original creation will fail.

[Snorek]

Hard to imagine that bitcoin may fail. But from what I've been reading on this topic it seems that this can indeed come to pass.

If it does, how will it be

The Bitcoin Foundation is in position to do some damage, but I don't think Satoshi's original creation will fail.

People invested too much already in bitcoin to let it fall. Bitcoin price may be volatile but I do not think it will reach zero - and thus ultimately die.

[KaChingCoinDev]

Yeah as long as people keep using it, it probably won't fail. If it gets replaced or abandoned, then it wouldn't be useful any longer.

Exactly. If for some reason an altcoin replaces BTC (god forbid), BTC would die.

[gkv9]

As long as demand is present, there is no way that bitcoin will fail. And also, if the miners shut down their miners at the same moment, transactions cannot be processed, and thus disabling the network as a whole.

That's what even I was thinking, that if all of a sudden, all the miners shutdown their miners and the txns stop processing, won't it be considered as failure to the whole BTC network as what will make it run if the difficulty suddenly decreases and (not at all possible but) reaches to 0? How will the Blockchain work? Is there any backup by the Foundation?

[runpaint]

As long as demand is present, there is no way that bitcoin will fail. And also, if the miners shut down their miners at the same moment, transactions cannot be processed, and thus disabling the network as a whole.

That's what even I was thinking, that if all of a sudden, all the miners shutdown their miners and the txns stop processing, won't it be considered as failure to the whole BTC network as what will make it run if the difficulty suddenly decreases and (not at all possible but) reaches to 0? How will the Blockchain work? Is there any backup by the Foundation?

What if all the stores in the world stopped accepting U.S. Dollars all at the same time? 

Even if everyone around the world stopped mining Bitcoin at the same time, which is impossible under any normal circumstances, the major problem would be waiting for the difficulty to adjust.  Other than that, it wouldn't be a problem at all.  We could all just go back to mining on laptops.

[dothebeats]

As long as demand is present, there is no way that bitcoin will fail. And also, if the miners shut down their miners at the same moment, transactions cannot be processed, and thus disabling the network as a whole.

That's what even I was thinking, that if all of a sudden, all the miners shutdown their miners and the txns stop processing, won't it be considered as failure to the whole BTC network as what will make it run if the difficulty suddenly decreases and (not at all possible but) reaches to 0? How will the Blockchain work? Is there any backup by the Foundation?

Failure to process transactions also means failure of the coin itself. Well if the damage that's been done is beyond repair, then we might consider it as a failure and may be forced to accept the fact that bitcoin is indeed in its last steps.

But I don't think it will happen sooner or later. Why would miners do that in the first place, simultaneously?

[dothebeats]

As long as demand is present, there is no way that bitcoin will fail. And also, if the miners shut down their miners at the same moment, transactions cannot be processed, and thus disabling the network as a whole.

That's what even I was thinking, that if all of a sudden, all the miners shutdown their miners and the txns stop processing, won't it be considered as failure to the whole BTC network as what will make it run if the difficulty suddenly decreases and (not at all possible but) reaches to 0? How will the Blockchain work? Is there any backup by the Foundation?

What if all the stores in the world stopped accepting U.S. Dollars all at the same time? 

Even if everyone around the world stopped mining Bitcoin at the same time, which is impossible under any normal circumstances, the major problem would be waiting for the difficulty to adjust.  Other than that, it wouldn't be a problem at all.  We could all just go back to mining on laptops.

It can help because when the above situation happens, the difficulty will drastically decrease, which means we can go mine by our laptops and pcs to move transactions in the network. But you're correct. Under any normal circumstances, it is impossible to happen.

[pitham1]

As long as demand is present, there is no way that bitcoin will fail. And also, if the miners shut down their miners at the same moment, transactions cannot be processed, and thus disabling the network as a whole.

That's what even I was thinking, that if all of a sudden, all the miners shutdown their miners and the txns stop processing, won't it be considered as failure to the whole BTC network as what will make it run if the difficulty suddenly decreases and (not at all possible but) reaches to 0? How will the Blockchain work? Is there any backup by the Foundation?

Well, I definitely know one miner who won't shut down operations.
Number of miners coming down will increase the chances of a 51% attack, but definitely won't mean the end of Bitcoin.

[virtapayseller666]

As long as demand is present, there is no way that bitcoin will fail. And also, if the miners shut down their miners at the same moment, transactions cannot be processed, and thus disabling the network as a whole.

That's what even I was thinking, that if all of a sudden, all the miners shutdown their miners and the txns stop processing, won't it be considered as failure to the whole BTC network as what will make it run if the difficulty suddenly decreases and (not at all possible but) reaches to 0? How will the Blockchain work? Is there any backup by the Foundation?

Well, I definitely know one miner who won't shut down operations.
Number of miners coming down will increase the chances of a 51% attack, but definitely won't mean the end of Bitcoin.

bitcoin will never End its Endless Now  btc is still at 250$ from last night

[kpitti]

Problem with PayPal and Credit Cards is that they are running with companies which sets the rules. Rules which are defined by goverments and themself. You need to accept it and this can cause a problem. I did not count how many times PayPal force me to accept new terms.
Bitcoins can be send without such oblications.