What are some Black Swan events that might threaten bitcoin?
Discussion
Governments decided to stop printing money.
Lol. We all know that won't happen.
That's why it is called as a black swan...or rainbow swan?
Then the shutdown of the internet. But, countries in Africa have already been proving that its possible to perform transactions without internet access. So... 🤷♂️
This is an interesting topic. I can imagine nuclear war or the shutdown of the internet. But, neither of those seem likely.
You have a lot more faith in our leaders than I do!
I'd put the risk of each at around 10% just for the 2020s...
I totally get where you're coming from. It only takes one lunatic to make a rash decision. But, I don't even think they're stupid enough to start a nuclear war. Nuclear war benefits no one. Not even them.
I used to believe that. Started to doubt during my stint in the Army. Read Daniel Ellsberg's memoir and realised. Its not rational to believe they will behave rationally as a group and a system.
There are no JFKs in the world today. There are no Khrushchev's either. There are a bunch of unprincipled, entitled midwits playing chicken on a railway line as they try to pick each other's pockets.
Ellsbergs book:
Just ordered the book. Thank you! 👌😎
The one all my doomer friends seem convinced is inevitable is, "All it would take us one EMP and Bitcoin is worthless."
EMP
A definite possibility. 🤷♂️
I think it would have to be a global EMP for this to be a real threat to the network.
EMP really doesn't work that way. Even a nearby high-altitude nuke will only destroy things attached to long conductors.
Your phone will survive. Anything grid-connected but with proper filtering will survive (probably includes the phone tower). Your TV and your modem plugged into the wall socket? Yeah they're toast.
But bitcoin as a system will barely notice.
Very interesting. So, what would you say could pose a potential threat to the network?
Government mismanagement with a slide into global economic implosion and strategic thermonuclear war would do it.
I just don't see much else that can threaten the Cryptocurrency ecosystem as a whole.
I'd put the risk of fragmentation of the Internet into multiple hostile blocs with either fibres cut or Great Firewalled at 30% by the end of the decade. (Some countries already have systems close to this, and not just those you hear about). This will cause network forks and fragmentation, but is unlikely to stop cryptocurrencies on its own.
Internet is KYC, but encryption and VPNs get around it, and are too hard to put back in the bottle without completely trashing the economy (SSH with TLS can easily make a slow but secure point to point VPN to anywhere with access to a better VPN. Detecting and blocking TLS means no secure mass public internet commerce or communication).
Many countries already punish participation in cryptocurrency transactions with stiff prison terms, and they haven't succeeded in stamping it out even domestically. But they can prevent people running nodes. Unless people use Tor or I2P.
A global effort of the sort China wages against Tor seems unlikely, but Apple-style closed ecosystems could be tightened to restrict adoption of both VPNs and cryptocurrencies.
Finally, there are government PR attacks on crytocurrencies, and network-enabled attacks on the protocols or their implementations. But they do that already, and the ecosystem adapts.
Yeah, cryptos are looking pretty solid to me!
Giant asteroid making life impossible.