Bitcoin Cannot Fail

Comments

Suverans2's picture
Suverans2, posted on July 28, 2011

I am admittedly ignorant about all this, and as a result I have these questions.

    Last summer, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) introduced a bill that proposes what many have called an Internet "kill switch" for the U.S. The bill, which is expected to be reintroduced this year, requires Web companies and Internet providers to comply with the U.S. government and gives the president the authority to shut down the Web in a national cyber emergency.
    http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/egypt-internet-switched-off-happen-us/story?id=12786160
    "In the face of mounting political unrest, Egypt took the unprecedented step of severing all Internet connections and shutting down its cellphone services—with the cooperation of international firms."
    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703956604576110453371369740.html

Based on the preceding information, could this be done world-wide, by the PTB; and, if so, would this, in effect, cause Bitcoin to fail?

GregL's picture
GregL, posted on July 29, 2011

Suverans2,

I'm no expert either, but FWIW here is the way I understand it:
1) You can continue to store the bitcoins you have on local storage media
2) But network connectivity is necessary so that the bitcoin transactions can be confirmed as valid
3) If the global internet were shut down temporarily then bitcoin transactions could resume as soon as the internet or parts of it were restored
4) If the global internet were shutdown permanently, then confirmation of bitcoin transactions could occur over some other kind of network (e.g. Freenet) as long as some part of the communications infrastructure remained intact

- Greg

Suverans2's picture
Suverans2, posted on July 30, 2011

Thank you, Greg.

 

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