[erulabs]

I agree strongly with the tiresome comment, and I am a bag holder and have been interested in monetary policy and economics my entire life - but not enough to read the same 10 comments over and over every day.

In answer to your question, technically no, but realistically yes.

Technically, BTC “transactions” can happen "on paper", the keys can be physically handed off to each other, etc (there are plenty of possible answers here that are all fairly vague and hand-wavey). There are many problems with this that make it wildly impractical though (see replies to this comment).

In reality, El Salvador (if I've understood correctly) was going to use a lightning "side-chain" for dramatically faster and cheaper transactions - this would require connecting to a known (and centralized) main service. I would guess though that this isn't exactly intended to replace their currency as a day-to-day usage, but rather for large transactions (like the down payment on real-estate) which is already an "internet-strictly-required" transaction, even in developing nations.

I hope that answers the question - if BTC was meant as a replacement for buying a can of coke, you'd be 100% correct that the internet infrastructure is nowhere near sufficient - but despite what the "I hate bitcoin so much my mouth is foaming" and the "my entire life depends on the price going up" crowds say, BTC is not being suggested as the only currency for El Salvador, just as "legal tender" as an alternative option for its citizens to store their wealth in a system that is not controlled by banks that are outside of El Salvador. Personally, I think it's quite nice that developing nations now have a lever they can use against, for example, the World Bank.

[xiphias2]

> Technically, BTC “transactions” can happen "on paper", the keys can be physically handed off to each other, etc (there are plenty of possible answers here that are all fairly vague and hand-wavey). There are many problems with this that make it wildly impractical though (see replies to this comment).

For large transactions using microSD cards is the recommended way actually. There are multiple hardware wallets that support partially signed bitcoin transactions (PSBT), and using SD cards both make it easier to verify the communication between the signing device and the Bitcoin network, and make it easier to sign the transactions using multisig at multiple different locations before publishing them on the network.

[squabble]

You're wrong about lightening. It costs a fraction of a cent per transaction and is meant for everyday transactions. For very large transactions, it is wiser to use the main BTC network since there is lower risk.

Edit: I'm forbidden to reply but not to edit, so I'll reply to your comment below here.

Reply: Yes. The thing you were wrong about was that lightning is not meant for everyday transactions. It actually is.

[erulabs]

Yes I agree with the cost and speed (which I mentioned) however lightning does require being connected over the internet.

[remarkEon]

Great comment, thanks. Yeah, I'm kind of beyond talking about the philosphy of Bitcoin or crypto or monetary policy on this website. Too much FUD and flamebait and all that. Maybe it'll die down in the future. Still, I find the technical questions of "suppose we wanted to 'do BTC' how would we do it?" interesting.

[squabble]

You're wrong about BTC transactions happening on physical paper with no connection to the network. It's not possible.

[erulabs]

Technically yes, a “transaction” is on-network - but one can trade wallets (eg: trading paper keys or “Physical bitcoins”). The definition of the word “transaction” is the important bit here.

[squabble]

You can give me the private key to a wallet, but if I'm not connected to the network to see how much money it controls, that's not much good. Even if I trust you temporarily, at some point a network connection is required. Otherwise, it doesn't have anything to do with BTC.

Edit: Additionally, as someone else pointed out, you could have kept your own copy of the key and could empty the wallet before me.

[erulabs]

Some physical Bitcoin products solve that too - but I agree completely with you here. That’s why I made it clear that it’s only -technically- possible, but not remotely practical.

[itsdsmurrell]

Yep, dead wrong. If you hand someone a private key, you now both have control of those coins.

[erulabs]

They’re impractical, but checkout Physical bitcoins: https://medium.com/the-capital/everything-you-need-to-know-a...

I did say -technically- and I do mean that - I’m not suggesting this is practical.