Friday, May 21, 2021

Though Experiment: If There Was A Global Extinction Event And All Civilizations Were Destroyed (Along With Internet & Much Technology) What Would Happen To Our Bitcoins?

Disclaimer: I do not have a very deep understanding of tech and code etc. so if I foolishly stumble into this subject forgive me. This is also somewhat lighthearted and just something else to think about at the moment other than price.

I was just watching the Lex Fridman podcast with Sam Harris and Harris mentioned in passing a situation in which only a tiny number of people have survived some huge extinction event such as global nuclear war or an asteroid etc. In his thought experiment he was imagining how long it might take for people to re-invent the internet and other lost technologies, supposing that the small number of people left had little to no knowledge of how to recreate the lost technologies. It seems realistic to me that if <1% of people survived an apocalypse they would most likely not have the knowledge let-alone the resources to rediscover even a fraction of what would have been lost. This is itself debatable but for the sake of the thought experiment we will have to imagine that they could recreate some of our technology at some point.

Which leads me into the Bitcoin question, as I imagine that all our bitcoins and private keys would still exist out there just as long as someone could restart the internet? And assuming that one had their private keys etc. then they could (in theory) access their wallet? So in theory, if a group of survivors managed to restart the internet they could transact from their old wallets, assuming they have their keys etc. Is this correct? I would assume there would be no liquidity to buy or sell LOL as all exchanges would not exist but holders could still transact to & from addresses providing they have access to their wallets, right?

Which leads me to the second part of the thought experiment: Lets say everyone who knew about cryptocurrency was wiped out but surviving generations managed to get the internet back online would they be able to find the old blockchains and interact with them? So if I had etched my private key into a stone tablet and left it for my future descendants to decrypt and access would they be able to? xD


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