Proof-of-work coins such as Bitcoin, Monero, and Zcash will lose all their security in the coming crisis, because miners won't be able to exchange BTC for fiat to pay their electricity.
Considering how stupid that statement is, I highly doubt the answer is yes.
I was referring to Jim Rickards' prediction that the elite will shut down the financial system for a period of time. I am saying that if that period of time is of sufficient duration that BTC can't be exchanged for fiat to pay for electricity, then mining farms have to shut down.
If the world is in such a chaos that the entire world financial system can be shut down and no one can move any fiat for some period of time, then proof-of-work miners can also be affected because they have bills to pay.
Whereas, a proof-of-stake system would not be so affected because it doesn't require consumption of an external resource. We might argue that such chaos would also shut down the entire Internet, but I tend to think the Internet is much more global, resilient and diverse than a few mining farms in China.
So please enlighten us as to which of us is stupid?
bathrobehero, are you challenging me to an intellectual contest? Do you really think you can challenge me intellectually?
I'm not challenging you to anything but that statement was stupid.
If the financial system would magically shut down, don't you think crypto would be much more appreciated?
Especially the crypto whose security isn't impacted by inability to convert the token to fiat. So the impetus and motivation will likely turn away from PoW and towards anything secure as an alternative (and realize I have knowledge of such a system which is unreleased). I have information you don't have.
Sure, some hobby miners would stop and the difficulty might drop some but the majority of mining would definitely not stop at all.
Mining farms have to pay their electricity bills. Hobbiests are not providing the security of Bitcoin.
With current prices and assuming all miners sell as soon as they can it costs just over 2 million USD per day to "run" the network (which also includes miner's profit). On a global scale even in a chaos scenario where miners couldn't sell off easily, I don't think that's much especially since it would help the financial situation greatly.
That would be more compelling argument if the mining wasn't concentrated into a few mining farms.
If the elite want to shut everything down so they can force firesale prices so they can gobble up the assets they want, why would mining farms be undesirable assets to steal?
Not to mention there were presumably long streches of time where miners mined speculatively because current prices were unfavorable.
So you didn't take Economics 101 and thus don't understand that mining farms are not the marginal miners.
I have no doubt serious miners could weather some pretty long storms.
Mining farms are probably mostly debt slaves who have to make their debt payments every month as well as electricity.
But even if not, they still need fiat to pay their electricity with. If the financial system shuts down, they can't pay their electricity. Or worse, maybe their electricity provider can't pay its employees and shuts down.
I didn't state it as a certainty. I stated it as an additional risk factor.
Centralized paradigms are not anti-fragile.
And we're also practically flying towards cheap renewable energy so PoW in general becomes less of an issue every day.
Now you've totally ruined your credibility. I suggest you get an education in Economics before you try to challenge me:
http://www.truthcoin.info/blog/pow-cheapest/The security of PoW is the amount spent on energy. If energy gets cheaper, then the hashrate will increase so that the total amount spent remains the same.