Overall, I found this to be a good read and fairly accurate, but my assessment finds it to be lacking on two major issues:
1. Recency bias. The author only goes back 100 years to find the largest solar flare, an X-15, that caused an outage in Canada. If we consider the macro solar cycles we will find the sun capable of significantly larger flares. The Carrington event of 1859 being of notable importance causing primitive electrical grids for telegraphs catching fire and inert unconnected metal objects like doorknobs reportedly holding enough energy to knock people off their feet.
2. Continued degradation of our magnetic field. The rapid degradation of Earth's magnetic field is leaving us more vulnerable to less powerful flares. It is well known among those interested and paying attention that our magnetic field is weakening rapidly, specifically over the past 5 to 10 years. Even NOAA, NASA, and the FAA have acknowledged this either directly or indirectly and backed by an increasing number of scientific articles.
I believe Bitcoin is vulnerable to a solar EMP, but *hopefully* not a killshot. Here's why:
At any 1 time half of the Earth is exposed to the sun. If the sun emits a solar flare killshot the half of the Earth that is facing the sun during the arrival of the CME component will bare the brunt of the damage, with the center half of that half getting the worst of it. Earth's magnetic field and atmosphere will spread this impact out however.
This would result in electrical equipment outages and damage that could significantly impact Bitcoin block time until mining adjustment catches up--beyond the obvious broad regional power outage problems impacting lives.
It would be in humanity's best interest to make friends on the other side of the world, not enemies.
1. Recency bias. The author only goes back 100 years to find the largest solar flare, an X-15, that caused an outage in Canada. If we consider the macro solar cycles we will find the sun capable of significantly larger flares. The Carrington event of 1859 being of notable importance causing primitive electrical grids for telegraphs catching fire and inert unconnected metal objects like doorknobs reportedly holding enough energy to knock people off their feet.
2. Continued degradation of our magnetic field. The rapid degradation of Earth's magnetic field is leaving us more vulnerable to less powerful flares. It is well known among those interested and paying attention that our magnetic field is weakening rapidly, specifically over the past 5 to 10 years. Even NOAA, NASA, and the FAA have acknowledged this either directly or indirectly and backed by an increasing number of scientific articles.
I believe Bitcoin is vulnerable to a solar EMP, but *hopefully* not a killshot. Here's why:
At any 1 time half of the Earth is exposed to the sun. If the sun emits a solar flare killshot the half of the Earth that is facing the sun during the arrival of the CME component will bare the brunt of the damage, with the center half of that half getting the worst of it. Earth's magnetic field and atmosphere will spread this impact out however.
This would result in electrical equipment outages and damage that could significantly impact Bitcoin block time until mining adjustment catches up--beyond the obvious broad regional power outage problems impacting lives.
It would be in humanity's best interest to make friends on the other side of the world, not enemies.
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