Dear Bitcoinbros,

I would like to propose a solution to a potential vulnerability in the Bitcoin network, particularly during times of global catastrophes or significant disruptions in hash rate.

Imagine a scenario where a sudden and prolonged decrease in hash rate occurs due to a global catastrophe, such as widespread infrastructure and or hardware damage (f.e. because of an atomic war, an unforeseen solar storm, etc). In such cases, it could take many months or even years to rebuild and restore the hardware necessary to reach previous hash rate levels. During this time, the network could essentially become unusable, as no blocks would be found until hash rate levels return to normal.

To address this issue, I suggest implementing an automatic difficulty adjustment mechanism as a contingency measure. If no valid block is found within a certain timeframe (e.g., 48 hours), indicating a significant drop in hash rate due to unforeseen circumstances, the network would automatically adjust the difficulty level to a more suitable level as it would after 2016 blocks anyway.

As a non-coder of course I have no idea how to implement that technically but such emergency adjustment would enable miners theoretically to continue finding blocks at a reasonable rate, even during periods of low hash rate caused by sudden global disruptions - it would make Bitcoin really doomsday resistent!

By proactively addressing this potential vulnerability, we can ensure the stability and continuity of the Bitcoin network, even in the face of unprecedented challenges. This proposal would require thorough discussion within the Bitcoin community - but of course it is also possible that I am simply making an embarassing mistake and that the problem described has long since been solved, even for worst-case scenarios.