[acdha]

Normal people would notice and agitate for the internet to be restored. Most people’s daily lives would be significantly impacted.

In contrast, only speculators would notice bitcoin going offline. They might laugh at the guys who told them they weren’t going to make it but that’d be it. Nothing would break, nobody would be in line ahead of them failing to buy something, etc.

That matters because bitcoin’s floor value is zero: as a very weak fiat currency, the only reason to use it is when you think it’ll be profitable and if that confidence drops miners will stop putting more hard money into the system.

[HN_is_for_gemes]

The floor value of EVERY company is $0, but what is your point in saying that?

You can be mad that people paid $$$ for Beanie Babies but that does mean that there value is nothing.

[acdha]

> The floor value of EVERY company is $0, but what is your point in saying that?

There's a big difference between something like a Beanie Baby, which has a base value of whatever someone will pay for a toy (you're not getting rich, but it's not zero), a company whose shares convey fractional ownership of assets and an ongoing revenue stream, and a very weak fiat currency like Bitcoin which has value only to the degree to which your buyer believes they will be able to resell it at a profit.

With a strong fiat currency like the US dollar, that belief is anchored by the size of the related economy and the millions of people who are guaranteed to use USD to pay taxes and other government fees, sell goods and services to the government or be paid by it, and the millions of business relationships specified in dollars. Yes, that could change over time but it's not something which happens quickly except in disaster scenarios where the value of any currency is moot and you wouldn't be running Bitcoin miners in any case.