[Retric]

Major blockchains are by definition the survivors at this point, but a great many have already bit the dust. In the end the single point of failure is always going to be the value of the coin on the open market, 100% of 0$ doesn’t pay server costs.

[thebean11]

Sure but it's not exactly random which chains went to zero. BTC isn't going to hit $0 due to chance, not sure if that's what you're implying.

[Retric]

By the same token, BTC or other coin hitting zero is not just a question of chance. Suppose BTC had a large dip in value and a similar drop in mining. What are the odds people would focus on repeated double spend attacks for the lulz thus dropping the value to zero?

I am not saying that’s likely today, but rather that it’s easy to over estimate resilience in the case of black swan events.

[thebean11]

No need to speculate, look at the price and hash rate charts in 2017. The more recent hashrate drop was even bigger. Still no successful attacks.

There's a disincentive for people with mining power to attack the network (assuming they even have enough). It makes their hardware worth less so I can't imagine anyone doing it for kicks.

Agree though that something similar to what you're saying is what Bitcoin hitting $0 would look like. Certainly not impossible but I think it's extremely difficult attack. Even more so now than in 2017.

[Retric]

Yea, I think that’s more a risk of dropping the last 1% in value rather than a significant risk to current prices.

The real issue for current owners is Crypto seems to have lost it’s grip on the popular imagination. https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=bitcoin What happens from here is likely a question of utility rather than speculation.

[thebean11]

Try "web3", "smart contract", or "NFT" though. I think there's a shift from focusing on the protocols themselves to stuff built on top.