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Re:It can all go to zero by baq on Tuesday January 16, 2018 @01:36PM (#16160747)
> Why would it go to zero?

Crisis of faith. There's nothing else behind it.

Re:It can all go to zero by adamnemecek on Tuesday January 16, 2018 @01:38PM (#16160776)
The thing tho is that people have seen the insane gains it can provide. There will always be buyers. If Bitcoin went to $50 tomorrow, you can bet I would buy a lot. I'm not the only one. It's done magic once, it might again.

The point is, there will always be buyers.

Re:It can all go to zero by JumpCrisscross on Tuesday January 16, 2018 @01:41PM (#16160808)
> The point is, there will always be buyers

Someone could have said the same for the Dutch East India Trading Company. "What, will the colonies sink into the ocean?"

Note: I'm not saying it will become worthless. But you're grossly underestimating this risk.

Re:It can all go to zero by skykooler on Tuesday January 16, 2018 @01:44PM (#16160854)
To buy Bitcoin, a miner somewhere has to produce a block with your transaction in it. If the value of Bitcoin falls that much, it will no longer be profitable to mine. With no miners, nobody could buy or sell anything.
Re:It can all go to zero by cableshaft on Tuesday January 16, 2018 @01:49PM (#16160926)
And then the hashing algorithm self-corrects in difficulty downwards, and an individual could mine on their own PC again, like it did in the beginning when almost no one was using it, let alone dedicated mining equipment.
Re:It can all go to zero by Kiro on Tuesday January 16, 2018 @01:56PM (#16161010)
The difficulty will be adjusted accordingly and automatically (it's part of the protocol). Your scenario can't happen.
Re:It can all go to zero by teraflop on Tuesday January 16, 2018 @02:21PM (#16161326)
Sure it can happen. The difficulty is adjusted every 2016 blocks, which normally means every two weeks.

Let's say the most recent difficulty adjustment has just passed, and the total network hash power suddenly drops by a factor of two. That means each block takes twice as long to find, so now you have to wait four weeks for it to correct itself. And during those four weeks, if the hash rate continues to drop, the adjustment gets further and further away.

Basically, if hash power drops by 5% per day for a sustained period, the network can't recover fast enough.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Difficulty

Re:It can all go to zero by adamnemecek on Tuesday January 16, 2018 @01:46PM (#16160875)
That was planned for. Like there's only 20million Bitcoins tops.
Re:It can all go to zero by paulmd on Tuesday January 16, 2018 @01:58PM (#16161041)
It has nothing to do with the issue rate of Bitcoin, frisbee-on-the-roof is potentially a real problem.

Say Bitcoin crashes down to $1 tomorrow, such that it's no longer profitable to mine. A bunch of miners go dark. What happens to the block time?

Now remember that difficulty readjusts every 2016 blocks. If there are now 1% as many miners, that means a 1000-minute blocktime and potentially up to 1400 days per adjustment period (average of 700).

In this situation, the only option would be a hardfork to bootstrap the network back to a live state, either by directly adjusting the difficulty or by readjusting more frequently and more aggressively.

Re:It can all go to zero by adamnemecek on Tuesday January 16, 2018 @03:09PM (#16161892)
Are you saying this will happen to all crypto or just Bitcoin? Ok if Bitcoin goes away, it might over time, exponential decay and what not. Or might also go up. But crypto overall will most likely go up. Like you can't go back.

And I feel like people for example aren't talking about the fact that technology doesn't really go away. Like any technology we've ever invented is still used somewhere. This will very much be like bitcoin.

Re:It can all go to zero by paulmd on Tuesday January 16, 2018 @03:21PM (#16162042)
Specifically Bitcoin, other coins have more robust difficulty readjustment mechanisms.
Re:It can all go to zero by qsucvatz on Tuesday January 16, 2018 @05:29PM (#16163347)
Bitcoin can fork to change it's Difficulty Adjustment Algorithm.