What role will Bitcoin play in the aftermath of a nuclear war?

Author: Carol (@CC99Carol)

Editor: Colin Wu

Abstract：

With the Russian-Ukrainian war going on, the possibility that nuclear bombs will be used in war again in human history has sparked much speculation, and there is even the possibility of triggering a global nuclear war and entering a nuclear winter. Whether Bitcoin can survive a nuclear war seems to have been a question since its birth.

Foreword

Recently, the topic of whether Bitcoin can survive a nuclear war has been hotly discussed. The trigger for this hot discussion is roughly the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the gradually protracted Russia-Ukraine war.

Politics and economics are inseparable, especially in today's era of globalization, and this has led to concerns and thoughts about virtual currencies.

Bitcoin is naturally the first to be thought of as a generational purpose.

Currently, there are arguments for the survival and destruction of Bitcoin, each with their own reasons. The survivor side is mostly represented by cryptographers like Nick Szabo and Ralph Merkle (the inventor of the Merkle tree), who mostly analyze it from a technical perspective, insisting that Bitcoin's distributed network would allow it to survive a nuclear war.

The opposite side, on the other hand, argues from the value of bitcoin itself, arguing that it would play no real role in a war.

So, let's explore the specific reasons why everyone stands at different positions.

Opinions and Reasons Why Bitcoin Can Survive

1、Technical perspective

If a nuclear war broke out, there would be a global power outage and the machines would be damaged, but Bitcoin would still be able to survive.

As we all know, Bitcoin uses a distributed network system that has servers in all corners of the world to maintain the entire Bitcoin network. So even if a war breaks out or expands to a certain extent, it is impossible to destroy the entire bitcoin network at once.

This is like the Majin Buu in Dragon Ball. Even if the body is bombed to only a few cells, it can still be resurrected continuously. Bitcoin is like Majin Buu's body, even if part of the network is destroyed, it can be revived Continuous use will not touch the foundation of the distributed network. From this point of view, Bitcoin is indeed indestructible.

Moreover, the current satellite system already covers most of the world, which means that bitcoins can be received anywhere as long as the device can connect to the satellite Internet downlink and maintain its own power supply. Also, under such conditions, the Bitcoin network is well positioned to provide ample computing power for mining computers.

Although people worry that a nuclear bomb in a nuclear war may release EMPs (electromagnetic pulses) to destroy all computers in the world, in fact, what EMP causes is only to affect the computing power of the entire system, and the Bitcoin network before being attacked by EMP It will be quickly frozen in the ledger, waiting to be restarted in the future.

2. Preservation of Value Perspective

When a nuclear war strikes, any physical payment system or bank would be devastated, and it would be a fool's errand to withdraw cash, and even if someone chooses to store their money at home, it would be significantly devalued by the war. Moreover, once the country that issued the currency is destroyed in a war, the balance in the account will be rendered meaningless.

Therefore, any fiat currency has a fatal flaw, namely a single point of failure, which simply means that if the banking system goes wrong, the whole monetary system will not work. And this does not exist for decentralized Bitcoin.

Moreover, even if a centralized bank could survive a war, ordinary people would not be able to operate themselves, knowing that the requirements of the entire banking system are very stringent, whereas bitcoin can be run and operated by anyone simply by having the relevant equipment and power.

This shows that bitcoin is more durable, longer lasting, and more valuable to preserve than any legal tender in the event of a war. Also because of the decentralized nature of Bitcoin itself, it is easier to survive compared to fiat currencies.

Opinions and reasons why bitcoin is hard to survive

1、Only circulation value

People often say that a cannon is worth a million in gold, but in reality bitcoin has fallen sharply since the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian war instead.

Bitcoin has long been known as "digital gold", but in fact, a careful analysis of the nature of gold is that it acts as a general equivalent, becoming a medium of exchange due to its stability and ease of cutting and long-lasting preservation, but in terms of gold itself, it is only a precious metal and does not have any real value. Bitcoin, which is known as digital gold, even plays a large part in the value of circulation.

And as an asset, bitcoin does not fulfill the two key elements that a functioning currency should have: providing stability to users and serving as a means of storing value.

Bitcoin's price has fluctuated dramatically since its release. The biggest source of value of Bitcoin is the consensus of Bitcoin market participants, which gives Bitcoin its existence value; the higher the consensus, the higher the market value, but if the consensus decreases, so does its value, and if the consensus dies out, Bitcoin naturally ceases to exist.

From this perspective, it seems that bitcoin only has an unstable circulation, but its own existence is still given by the consensus of people. If war extinguishes people's consensus will, bitcoin will probably not survive.

2. Energy needs

After the outbreak of war, the first thing people think about is survival, and the necessities of survival include food, water, clothing, etc. We can use gold to exchange for these resources that we need, but bitcoin does not have the conditions to use directly, at this time the circulation value of bitcoin seems to have been lost in this moment.

In addition, when a nuclear bomb hits, it will create nuclear dust, which will prevent us from using solar energy, and there will be further shortages of energy as a result. The biggest problem with Bitcoin itself is that it uses a PoW (Proof of Work) consensus mechanism, which, in addition to witch attacks, is the huge amount of energy it consumes.

PoW, commonly known as mining, works like a protracted labor offensive, and the whole process is inefficient and requires a lot of energy to get more computing power for mining.

Our energy is already in short supply due to nuclear fallout, so if we were to invest in bitcoin mining, it would be too much of a luxury, and bitcoin would be left behind when faced of survival.　

Reference article：

[1] Charlie Shrem, Founder of the Bitcoin Foundation . Doomsday rant: If nuclear war breaks out, what will be the world's most durable currency? [EB/OL]. 2019-02-16 [2022-10-25]. https://www.8btc.com/article/361007.

[2]admin. How tough is the Bitcoin network? Even nuclear war and worldwide disconnection can't destroy it [EB/OL]. 2020-12-23[2022-10-25]. http://www.lianchaguan.com/archives/31688.

[3] Staff P. Would Bitcoin survive a nuclear war? Protos, 2022-10-17.

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