<p>Nassim Taleb, who coined the word Antifragile, has commented directly on Bitcoin in a recent AskMeAnything on Reddit:</p>

<p>"Bitcoin is the beginning of something great: a currency without a government, something necessary and imperative.</p>

<p>But I am not familiar with the specific product to assert whether it is the best potential setup.
And we need a long time to establish confidence. I only talk from skin-in-the-game.
If I had money in bitcoin, I would have reported it. But I don’t yet.
I am waiting to understand it better, not with my brain, but with my experience…"</p>

<p><a href="http://nassimtaleb.org/2013/03/nassim-taleb-on-bitcoin/" rel="nofollow">http://nassimtaleb.org/2013/03/nassim-taleb-on-bitcoin/</a></p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-07-01T14:16:21.690Z
2013-07-01T14:16:21.690Z
Zac
<p>Andreas Antonopolis has recently written an article asserting that, yes, Bitcoin is Antifragile.</p>

<p>Mainly because as it is subjected to randomness (attacks) it grows stronger and more resilient.</p>

<p>You can read it here: <a href="https://medium.com/@aantonop/anti-fragile-blockchain-39c894613c7e#.57bylhb5i" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://medium.com/@aantonop/anti-fragile-blockchain-39c894613c7e#.57bylhb5i</a></p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-12-16T18:58:55.310Z
2016-12-16T18:58:55.310Z
RPF
<p>There is a good argument that bitcoin fits the mold as an anti-fragile system.  However, that can be misleading.  While it means bitcoin will likely weather chaos and instability, it doesn't mean bitcoin will deal well with stability and regulation.  More here: <a href="https://medium.com/@joelrcannon/bitcoin-may-be-anti-fragile-but-that-does-not-mean-it-cant-break-bca019f792fe" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://medium.com/@joelrcannon/bitcoin-may-be-anti-fragile-but-that-does-not-mean-it-cant-break-bca019f792fe</a></p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-12-29T21:31:01.150Z
2017-12-29T21:31:01.150Z
Joel
<p>With my only knowledge of the concept of "antifragile" being the slideshow I just read, my initial assessment is <strong>yes, Bitcoin is antifragile</strong>.</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Antifragile benefits from randomness and gains from disorder.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Randomness in Bitcoin appears in the random generation of keys and in the whims of its users' spending habits. No one person controls the system, and a transaction may or may not get processed based on connectivity and fees. There is an incentive to connect to as many nodes as possible in order to broadcast a transaction.</p>

<p>In Bitcoin, anyone is allowed to participate, because no one is prohibited. Participation may be cost-prohibitive now, but as time goes on, it won't be.</p>

<p>There are stressors on the Bitcoin ecosystem: block chain dust, nodes disappearing, nodes flooding transactions, etc. None are as close of a match as sudden jumps in hashrate and the subsequent adjustment to difficulty. Too much of a jump, and the "body" breaks: someone gets a 51% attack going. But, enough of a push and the difficulty increases, making it harder to break that 51%. Also, if the body hasn't been used enough - there hasn't been a high enough hash rate to produce the expected number of blocks - the difficulty lowers in order to allow more blocks to be found. </p>

<p>Thus, <strong>the Bitcoin system adjusts to its environment.</strong> Moreover, it does so in a chaotic way: there are rules set in the protocol, but those rules can be change if a majority of participants in the system agree to change the rules <em>and</em> agree on a new set of rules. In the absence of Internet, Bitcoin transactions can propagate through sneakernet or through even basic text format printable on paper.</p>

<p>Moreover, given the randomness of human economic behavior and the external environment which Bitcoin uses to propagate, various edges and remote notes of the network graph may have sudden activity that the rest of the network doesn't see. The rest of the network has to deal with that activity or risk invalidating itself.</p>

<p>Slide 40 is one where Bitcoin really is antifragile:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Complex systems resist top-down design, and oftentimes even top-down interference. This is because these systems are simply too complex to be controlled from the outside.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Bitcoin is resistant to top-down design <em>now</em> because of the number of people using it and processing its transactions. Gavin Andresen could not suddenly make a change, because 51% of the network hashrate would have to agree with his change. No one can interfere, only vote to support or not support a given transaction by directing their miners to include or not to include a certain kind of transaction in the blocks they produce. Moreover, Bitcoin cannot be controlled by anyone except participants in its ecosystem (not matter what governments might think or try to do!).</p>

<p><strong>All participants in Bitcoin have a skin in the game.</strong> By processing transactions, they in turn process their own transactions as well as the transactions of their peers. If they can get 51% of the miners to act a certain way, then that's the way the economy goes.</p>

<p>So, yes, I believe that, based on this slideshow, <strong>Bitcoin is antifragile.</strong></p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-11-16T22:36:22.227Z
"Participation may be cost-prohibitive now, but as time goes on, it won't be." - I'm curious to hear more about why you think that? I see you're posting in 2013, have we reached a point where participation has gotten less costly? What kinds of things will make participation less costly in the future?
B T
CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-06-28T03:45:56.810Z
2013-06-28T03:45:56.810Z
Colin Dean
<p>A friend presented me the concept of <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/andrefaria/antifragile-16611267">antifragile</a> and asked me if Bitcoin is antifragile. I couldn't answer properly, so I'm asking the experts: </p>

<p>Can bitcoin be categorized as antifragile?</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-06-28T04:44:55.447Z
the word 'atomic' means the same as 'antifragile' ?!
vi.su.
<economic-theory>
Is Bitcoin antifragile?
That Brazilian Guy
# Is Bitcoin antifragile?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2013-06-27)

A friend presented me the concept of [antifragile](http://www.slideshare.net/andrefaria/antifragile-16611267) and asked me if Bitcoin is antifragile. I couldn't answer properly, so I'm asking the experts:

Can bitcoin be categorized as antifragile?

**Tags:** economic-theory

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: the word 'atomic' means the same as 'antifragile' ?!  

---

## 4 answers

### Answer by username_5 on 2013-06-28. Score: 9 | Accepted answer

With my only knowledge of the concept of "antifragile" being the slideshow I just read, my initial assessment is **yes, Bitcoin is antifragile**.

> Antifragile benefits from randomness and gains from disorder.

Randomness in Bitcoin appears in the random generation of keys and in the whims of its users' spending habits. No one person controls the system, and a transaction may or may not get processed based on connectivity and fees. There is an incentive to connect to as many nodes as possible in order to broadcast a transaction.

In Bitcoin, anyone is allowed to participate, because no one is prohibited. Participation may be cost-prohibitive now, but as time goes on, it won't be.

There are stressors on the Bitcoin ecosystem: block chain dust, nodes disappearing, nodes flooding transactions, etc. None are as close of a match as sudden jumps in hashrate and the subsequent adjustment to difficulty. Too much of a jump, and the "body" breaks: someone gets a 51% attack going. But, enough of a push and the difficulty increases, making it harder to break username_0 51%. Also, if the body hasn't been used enough - there hasn't been a high enough hash rate to produce the expected number of blocks - the difficulty lowers in order to allow more blocks to be found.

Thus, **the Bitcoin system adjusts to its environment.** Moreover, it does so in a chaotic way: there are rules set in the protocol, but those rules can be change if a majority of participants in the system agree to change the rules *and* agree on a new set of rules. In the absence of Internet, Bitcoin transactions can propagate through sneakernet or through even basic text format printable on paper.

Moreover, given the randomness of human economic behavior and the external environment which Bitcoin uses to propagate, various edges and remote notes of the network graph may have sudden activity username_0 the rest of the network doesn't see. The rest of the network has to deal with username_0 activity or risk invalidating itself.

Slide 40 is one where Bitcoin really is antifragile:

> Complex systems resist top-down design, and oftentimes even top-down interference. This is because these systems are simply too complex to be controlled from the outside.

Bitcoin is resistant to top-down design *now* because of the number of people using it and processing its transactions. Gavin Andresen could not suddenly make a change, because 51% of the network hashrate would have to agree with his change. No one can interfere, only vote to support or not support a given transaction by directing their miners to include or not to include a certain kind of transaction in the blocks they produce. Moreover, Bitcoin cannot be controlled by anyone except participants in its ecosystem (not matter what governments might think or try to do!).

**All participants in Bitcoin have a skin in the game.** By processing transactions, they in turn process their own transactions as well as the transactions of their peers. If they can get 51% of the miners to act a certain way, then username_0's the way the economy goes.

So, yes, I believe username_0, based on this slideshow, **Bitcoin is antifragile.**

> **Comments:**
> **username_6**: "Participation may be cost-prohibitive now, but as time goes on, it won't be." - I'm curious to hear more about why you think username_0? I see you're posting in 2013, have we reached a point where participation has gotten less costly? What kinds of things will make participation less costly in the future?  

---

### Answer by username_2 on 2013-07-01. Score: 2

Nassim Taleb, who coined the word Antifragile, has commented directly on Bitcoin in a recent AskMeAnything on Reddit:

"Bitcoin is the beginning of something great: a currency without a government, something necessary and imperative.

But I am not familiar with the specific product to assert whether it is the best potential setup.
And we need a long time to establish confidence. I only talk from skin-in-the-game.
If I had money in bitcoin, I would have reported it. But I don’t yet.
I am waiting to understand it better, not with my brain, but with my experience…"

<http://nassimtaleb.org/2013/03/nassim-taleb-on-bitcoin/>


---

### Answer by username_3 on 2016-12-16. Score: 1

Andreas Antonopolis has recently written an article asserting username_0, yes, Bitcoin is Antifragile.

Mainly because as it is subjected to randomness (attacks) it grows stronger and more resilient.

You can read it here: <https://medium.com/@aantonop/anti-fragile-blockchain-39c894613c7e#.57bylhb5i>


---

### Answer by username_4 on 2017-12-29. Score: 1

There is a good argument username_0 bitcoin fits the mold as an anti-fragile system. However, username_0 can be misleading. While it means bitcoin will likely weather chaos and instability, it doesn't mean bitcoin will deal well with stability and regulation. More here: <https://medium.com/@joelrcannon/bitcoin-may-be-anti-fragile-but-username_0-does-not-mean-it-cant-break-bca019f792fe>


---

