When you want to as "what if" topics you should at least put some thought into it and come up with a reasonable scenario or at least try to explain why you came up with the unreasonable one. For example why would 90%+ of miners go offline?
The aim was simplicity in a question and response for the people hating on the energy Bitcoin uses.
So more energy use = more security?
No but PoS = shit
Looking like the answer is actually yes.
All the remaining miners could just take out their old S9s, Newpacs, and Apollos to somewhat offset the loss in hashrate (as long as the difference would bring it up to somewhere below a 50% loss, right?
Obsolete gear is probably not going to put a dent in the hashrate unless its used in large formations.
Having 90% of the hashrate turned off means that the most important economic agent has lost trust in Bitcoin and there is no reason why any of the other market actors would be interested in this. Then it becomes a cycle, where more miners turn their ASICs off, so on so forth. You would see even larger decrease in the hashrates. Bitcoin won't survive.
Or maybe Bitcoin proves to outlive catastrophic and war events..?
But idk.. 90% miners going offline could mean many things I believe..
I found this meme-video hilarious but also very factual to current events, notably the "WW3" part.
https://twitter.com/naiivememe/status/1537043651817512960-snip-
So more energy use = more security?
Theoretically, if we're left with only 10% of the network's hash rate: a "
50% attack" will be a lot cheaper.
Not that 50%+ of 17,000,000 TH/s (
10% of 170m TH/s) is cheaply achievable for an individual or pools when 90% of miners shutdown, it's just cheaper than it now.
So in some way, higher network hash rate yields more security.
Looks like you already expected an answer like this due to the way the title and OP is written.More like confirmation & current opinions/information.
Plus, everyone will think that 90% of the miners might not be offline, but mining on a different chain, so, even if the adjustment kicks in and the block starts flowing normally there will be still the fear of an attack. So no, a sudden 90% drop right now would be the last thing we need, even behind rope and soap.
All the remaining miners could just take out their old S9s, Newpacs, and Apollos to somewhat offset the loss in hashrate (as long as the difference would bring it up to somewhere below a 50% loss, right?
Obsolete gear is probably not going to put a dent in the hashrate unless its used in large formations.
Like an old school backup system - just in case?