Resolution criteria

This market will resolve to YES if, at any point before January 1, 2100, the global internet is declared extinct, permanently collapses, or ceases to exist.

For the purposes of this market, "the internet" is defined as a globally interconnected, public, packet-switched network of networks utilizing the Internet Protocol Suite (TCP/IP) or its direct globally adopted successor protocols.

"Extinction" will be defined by any of the following conditions being met continuously for a period of at least one consecutive year:

1. Total Infrastructure Collapse / Abandonment: The complete retirement or physical destruction of the infrastructure supporting the global public internet, resulting in zero global routing of public packets.

2. Extreme User Collapse: The global count of daily active users of any public, globally interconnected network falls and remains below 100 million people (representing a near-total abandonment of global digital connectivity).

3. Total Fragmentation: The complete fragmentation of the internet into isolated national or regional networks with zero international routing or data exchange between them (i.e., no single interconnected "world wide" web remains, only completely disjoint intranets).

Resolution Source: This market will resolve based on the consensus of credible international bodies and global news organizations (e.g., the United Nations, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), IEEE, or major international news outlets). If a total global collapse occurs such that verifying these sources online is impossible, the market will resolve to YES if physical consensus, offline records, or eventual retrospect confirms the extinction occurred prior to Jan 1, 2100.

Background

The possibility of a global internet collapse or "extinction" has been a topic of debate since the network's inception. Notable early predictions, such as Robert Metcalfe's 1995 claim that the internet would experience a "catastrophic collapse" by 1996, proved false. However, futurists, researchers, and policymakers continue to study several theoretical existential risks to global connectivity:

• The "Splinternet": Increasing geopolitical balkanization leading to the permanent partitioning of the global network into sovereign, non-interconnected national webs.

• Physical Vulnerability: Solar superstorms (coronal mass ejections) damaging undersea fiber-optic cables and satellite constellations, or kinetic warfare targeting critical routing hubs.

• Security and Systemic Failures: Escalating cyber-warfare, AI-driven malicious code, or structural vulnerabilities that could render the public internet permanently unusable or unsafe.

• Technological Obsolescence: The emergence of a completely different paradigm of communications (e.g., localized quantum networks or non-TCP/IP mesh systems) that fully replaces and deprecates the current global internet.

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