[zupreme]

This comment is unlikely to win me many friends here, but it is worth considering that while Bitcoin is, nominally at least, decentralized and free from government control, internet access is not.

A simple glance at the trend of governments to partially or to fully shut down internet services to certain areas in times of unrest or mass protest means, in the case of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies requiring collective transaction verification via online communications, that a loss of internet constitutes an inability to conduct financial transactions for those thus affected.

While I applaud the efforts of so many to free the world from government control of "money", the full implementation of this effort should be preceded by freeing internet communications from the control of those same governments, otherwise what appears to be a new financial "power" is actually a new financial "weakness".

Think over this carefully.

[heckerhut]

Kinda solved https://www.wired.com/story/cypherpunks-bitcoin-ham-radio/

[xadhominemx]

Yes, ham radio has sufficient throughout for Bitcoin because very few people actually transact on the blockchain. If people actually ever used Bitcoin, ham radio would be useless.

[zupreme]

Well ham radio operation, in the USA at least, requires a license. Are you proposing that everyone get ham-radio-licensed as a prerequisite to participating in the new economy?

[ac29]

You also can't use it for anything you have a "pecuniary interest" in. Most agree that means any commercial transactions are not allowed (with the exception of selling radio equipment to other ham radio licensees).

[cbHXBY1D]

Also, encryption is illegal over packet radio.

[flush]

Definitely not a _new_ weakness, right? The vast majority of financial wealth is locked up in digital stores, which are even more so in the jurisdiction and immediate control of their respective governing body.

[chill1]

Internet is not required [1] to sync a full Bitcoin node. There have also been numerous proof-of-concepts for transmitting Bitcoin transactions via radio.

[1] https://blockstream.com/satellite/

[jpaul23]

Very nice initiative, but for first time users you still need to download 300GB+ of blockchain

[vmception]

https://aws.amazon.com/snowmobile/#:~:text=AWS%20Snowmobile%....

https://help.backblaze.com/hc/en-us/articles/217665948-Resto...

https://www.fastcompany.com/3048163/in-cuba-an-underground-n...

[homakov]

You never need to download 300gb, starting with 3gb snapshot is just as secure.

[vmception]

bitcoin and most cryptocurrencies function without a ubiquitous internet

as in: someone’s will always have computers linked together

networking cant be shut off, ubiquity can

end users dont need todays convenience of always knowing their balance, it can degrade to going to an internet cafe or bank to check your balance

and transact with your notes

transactions can be made offline, transported offline like files and eventually sent to the network again for inclusion in the blockchain

someone has to go back to the internet cafe / bank

like the merchant at the end of the day

the only real issue is the initial hashrate drop if all major mining nodes were disconnected and couldnt reconnect. so up to the first few months, for bitcoin exclusively, could be stressful, but then difficulty will adjust for the remaining computers and accept transactions at the expected speed

[zupreme]

I think you are missing the trust-factor inherent in Bitcoin and related cryptocurrencies. If you pay me 1 coin, I trust that you have the coin to spend because of collective verifications from other nodes in the network which confirm the same.

Similarly once you spend that coin with me, others may trust that I now have that coin to spend because of the same collective verification structure.

Offline transactions eliminate such trust capabilities due to the lack of transaction and balance verification.

[vmception]

while you work on restoring ubiquitous internet

the rest of us in the wasteland still have something better than a bottlecap based economy

you described something that temporarily puts it on equal footing with checks, but presented a higher standard exclusively for bitcoin to meet

[blueblisters]

Offline double-spend is still an unsolved problem. What prevents a rogue actor from making duplicates of the tokens and transact with it multiple times a day before the transactions are tallied with a blockchain? And fyi, it’s much harder to duplicate bottlenecks than your bitcoin wallet at the moment. Edit: bottlecaps not bottlenecks lol

[johndevor]

https://www.starlink.com/

https://www.cnet.com/news/best-vpn/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onion_routing