Historically, money systems haven't fared well when civilisation collapses (Try buying anything today with Aztec money!)
Could bitcoin do better?
I'm imagining a plague or asteroid that kills 99.9% of humans. 0.1% (7 million people) remain, but most forms of government and infrastructure are destroyed.
I believe under this scenario, bitcoin would fall out of use. Mining would probably stop for many years. 2016 blocks have to be mined at the current difficulty level before a difficulty adjustment can happen, and with very few mining rigs operational, that probably isn't going to happen. With no fast worldwide communication, all that mining probably has to happen in a single physical location too - making it even less likely.
Presented with the possibility of many years of a non-functional network, I can't see anyone deciding to keep using it as currency.
Perhaps bitcoins design could be tweaked to allow robustness to this very rare event without hurting robustness to other attacks?
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