How long can bitcoin last?
I am not talking about the price of bitcoin but bitcoin itself. In a Chinese wedding, the gold bracelet is given to the bride as a symbol of luck. Traditionally, the gold bracelet is then passed to the daughter and to the grand daughter and so on. That’s why gold is regarded as a store of value due to its durability. Can bitcoin play a similar role which be passed to our next few generations?
Bitcoin is not like gold that its durability is derived from its chemical property, i.e. low reactivity. Gold is durable by nature so bitcoin can hardly compete with gold in this dimension. Yet, what kind of factor affect bitcoin’s durability? To own bitcoin, you need a private key and a transaction record specifying your bitcoin address as the recipient. Your bitcoin can last long only if those two things are stored properly.
The most durable way to store a private key is to mark it on the durable metal. Gold is durable but not hard enough which can cause the distortion of words under strong force. Someone have designed a product called Crpytosteel which let you store private key in a stainless steel plate. ( https://cryptosteel.com/ ) It is claimed to be fire-, water- and shock-proof. At least, stainless steel components of some buildings like Chrysler building can last more than 80 years under proper care.
For the transaction record, it is stored as an entry inside the bitcoin blockchain. There are more than 11000 nodes currently. However, you need to store your own blockchain to ensure long durability because other nodes may cease to operate. Since the blockchain occupies more than 150 GB of data, it usually settles in the hard disk which is a cheap option for running a node. According to a cloud storage company, there is 50% probability that a hard drive can last more than 6 years. ( https://www.backblaze.com/blog/how-long-do-disk-drives-last/ ) Thus, you may need to replace hard disk regularly to hold bitcoin for long period of time. Fortunately, the technology evolves very fast that we will have durable large storage devices in the future.
To conclude, bitcoin’s durability is mainly affected by the storage method of blockchain.
