Is there a possibility that the whole blockchain system will be DOWN?

Question

I want to know if there is a possibility that all of our hard-earned bitcoins will turn to dust if the Blockchain system will get shut down or stop. Is this possible? I really have a big question mark in my mind since Bitcoin is a digital thing.

Answer 1

http://p2pfoundation.net/Blockchain

"The blockchain is nothing more than a long string of transactions, each of which refers to an earlier record in the chain. But Bitcoin users do not directly make the updates to the blockchain. In order to transfer coins to someone else, you have to create a request and broadcast it over the Bitcoin peer-to-peer network. After that, it’s in the hands of the miners. They scoop up the requests and do a few checks to make sure that the signature is correct and that there are enough bitcoins to make the transaction; then they bundle the new records into a block and add it to the end of the blockchain."

I don't think that it will happen. As long as there is miners to "scoop" up the transactions, blockchain will still work as it should be. Miners will not stop since they are earning worth of bitcoins from transactions fees.

Answer 2

First, remember that everyone running a full node has a complete copy of the blockchain (minus some optional pruning). Also, many who run full nodes have their own backup copies of this blockchain. I, alone, have 3 up-to-date copies of the blockchain at my home.

Lets assume that somehow, for some reason, all full nodes in the world were simultaneously shut off. At that point, the Bitcoin network would be off...but not dead. At any point, these full nodes could switch back on one by one, and the network would continue with the exact same blockchain of transaction history that it had before. The nodes would sync again, and the network would continue on as if nothing even happened.

Because of the decentralized, redundant nature of the Bitcoin network, this mass "switch off" has an extremely small probability of happening. It would basically have to coincide with the entire internet getting switched off, and remember that the internet is also decentralized and redundant.

So yes, the Bitcoin network could, in theory, go down. However, even if it did, the only way it could not be recovered is if the thousands of full nodes and their thousands of backups were also destroyed. Anything is possible...but it's so unlikely that it's probably not worth worrying about.