Bitcoin Forum

How do you transfer Bitcoins without an Internet connection?

I don't see how that would be possible since every transaction that is sent has to go through the blockchain before it can be received. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, I would be interested in finding out if there is another way.

Sms? Normal mail? Radio?  :)

You are right, but what matter is that the transaction enter the internet, not that YOU have an internet connection  ;) Send a SMS to a service that will put the transaction on internet and ta-dah  :)

On a piece of paper. You just need to know how much you want to transfer before you leave home and the party you give it to needs to trust you.

I think this question suffers from the XY problem (http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/66377/what-is-the-xy-problem). If you are attempting to physically transfer a set of Bitcoins, then you can simply sell a paper wallet to someone. I'd highly recommend Canton's paper wallet: https://bitcoinpaperwallet.com/

Isn't that what I just said?

Dead Drops ? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwohadcUv4A

"Un-cloud your files in cement! 'Dead Drops’ is an anonymous, offline, peer to peer file-sharing network in public space."

Dead Drops - http://deaddrops.com/  ;D  8)

I think we were writing at the same time. I didn't see your post.

oic

Canton's wallet is fine but is too troublesome for quick use. Better for long term storage.

Still, how do you put bitcoins in your system without a Internet Conection?

Do you think there could be a passthrough service for people to send raw transactions (made offline) via postalmail/skype/tor/twitter and then be transmitted on the network? Would be nice for countries that block internet during unrest etc.

It's technically possible.

Don't forget SMS and Phone :-)

I feel that YouTube comments will be the carrier pigeon of the new revolution  ;)

Edit; all i have to do is this:
8b4830450220033268303a1e22bddd7b4afebb0923fddc392f9df4e54401fd417186e7abffc1022 100e2d1e42a7b500f74ad7dc5ea1a4eb5cdb8f485407d71b6cfbc230c1c064eecd3014104e0ba53 1dc5d2ad13e2178196ade1a23989088cfbeddc7886528412087f4bff2ebc19ce739f25a63056b60 26a269987fcf5383131440501b583bab70a7254b09effffffff01b02e052a010000001976a9142d bde30815faee5bf221d6688ebad7e12f7b2b1a88ac00000000

These could be jammed easily, directly at the source.
The government force providers to cut SMS and cellphone services and sometimes landphones in time of stress.

But a Bitcoin transaction is so few bytes it is possible to send it using CB radio data link or LW radio data links, if at the other side there is some receiver able and willing to relay it to the network.

We need a satellite already  :-\

By "put bitcoins in your system" I take it you mean be able to spend/send bitcoins somewhere else.

If someone hands you a Casascius physical bitcoin (https://www.casascius.com/) with the hologram not disturbed then you own it. You can carry it around and save it or hand it to someone else, just like money.

In order for someone to actually send the value stored in the private key of the physical coin to another Bitcoin address then the hologram must be removed and the private key input into some software which can then send the coins over the Bitcoin network.

As far as I know Mt.Gox allows you to redeem private keys and so does Blockchain.info. Of course both of these services must be accessed online. However, at some point in the future I'm sure there will be software you can download to your own computer allowing you to input a private key offline for sending the value when online again, if it doesn't exist already.

Would it be more 'trusted' dealing with a) private keys to redeem into the online network or b) signed transactions. I guess if b), then the person has to generate the transaction somehow, but they can use the address more than once for less than full-balance transactions.

We need a new internet. An internet by the people for the people.

The Free Network Foundation - http://thefnf.org/

"The Free Network Foundation envisions a world where communities build, maintain, and own their own share of the global computer network."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fx93WJPCCGs - Free the Network: Hackers Take Back the Web.

We have had the examples from the banks since ancient times: denominated currency devised into useful amounts. You have a licence to print your own money. Have we not become our own banks thanks to this technology?

Begin printing BTC1 .50 .25 .125 .0625 .03125 .015625 or any subdivision you can think of, the key is that no transaction would ever need to go through the system if we exchanged barcoded paper denominations of bitcoin; like proof that you have btc in the bank redeemable at anytime over the network.

Just imagine a world where a phone is a wallet with multiple digital denominations that are simply exchanged from phone to phone; what is the transaction limit on that?

Anything that can take a rawtx printed in some standard font (preferably one optimized for OCR) and printed on paper, accept it into a scanner and dump it straight to https://blockchain.info/pushtx would do fine.  An automated system could even feed the paper itself directly into a shredder afterwards.

Is there any security risks in sending a rawtx to a third party, eg exposing addresses etc? Obviously the entire network would see it at some point..

The only risk is that they don't forward it onto the network. There is nothing in the rawtx that is not already in the blockchain.

Good ideas.

Physical bitcoins by Casascius, or any number of paper bitcoin notes you can buy on ebay or create yourself.

Or something ugly like this;


https://i.imgur.com/6rHMbxL.png

Worst case, there's always TCP/IP Over Carrier Pigeon as described in RFC-1149 (http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1149).

- offline or off-chain transactions
- bitcoin private keys secured with one time pads that both parties have chosen beforehand by rolling a dice

Thousands of them generated by your wallet dynamically and encrypted for immediate distribution face to face, unlockable on receipt of transmission; the dynamic constrution of an off chain mini network. I believe adam back has already devised a method somewhere here on the forum.

I wonder what the durability of those coins are. Will the tamper-proof stickers last decades not to mention centuries?

I think the problem this is facing, is that you need the unspent outputs from somewhere (ie online) before you can roll a rawtx.
Unless you can just fire off a privkey+outputaddress-esque combo and it just works?  :-\

... and under certain circumstances it can be faster than using certain ISPs. For example to transfer the entire blockchain to bootstrap a node.  http://www.news.com.au/technology/pigeon-transfers-data-faster-than-south-africas-telkom/story-e6frfro0-1225771449209 (http://www.news.com.au/technology/pigeon-transfers-data-faster-than-south-africas-telkom/story-e6frfro0-1225771449209)

If you read carefully, you will realize that they did not actually implement RFC-1149. RFC-1149 provisions a high latency, low bandwidth llink by printing black stuff on white stuff (paper).

In that story out of South Africa, they made a one-way, high bandwidth, high latency link. If anything, that story shows that RFC-1149 has now been made obsolete by flash memory. I ran the numbers for setting up a service here in Canada to get around high wholesale bandwidth costs: it actually made a stupid amount of sense (being price-competitive). The sticking point was that the Pigeons are a gimmick: since you need to use a courier to transport the Pigeons to their starting point. In that story they also did not appear to include the time required to read and write the memory stick. Most don't write faster than 10MB/s: which would actually be the major bottle-neck.

I remember when they used to say the highest bandwidth connection was a station wagon full of tapes on the highway.

For large amounts of data, SSDs on a plane is still more efficient than the Internet.

I'm sorry but I really couldn't resist:

http://i1286.photobucket.com/albums/a613/Charles_Hoskinson/final_zps23303841.png

What's wrong with a flash drive with the wallet.dat file on it?

You have to trust that the person who gave you the flash drive will not spend the coins.
You also need an Internet connection to actually check how many coins are actually represented by that wallet.dat

The real answer to the OP is that you really can't securely transfer Bitcoins without an Internet connection, however tenuous. It is one of the weaknesses of the system.

You can use an intermittent connection like dial-up, but you would either have to run a "lite" client, or have the block-chain mailed to you periodically.

So... nice ideas! :-)
Thanks!

Use firmcoins.
http://firmcoin.com//wp-content/uploads/2013/06/FirmCoin.png

Bad idea, whoever get their hand on the paper wallet is able to read the private key and steal the bitcoins. Send a transaction, no one can steal it

 Use keyless paper bills.

Whoever can get their hands on your paper dollars can steal them! The point is not using the internet.

I think we need bitcoin bills. 1BTC, .1 BTC, .01 BTC. If we had 1million BTC in physical bills in circulation, things would get interesting.  

Anyone got a printing press?

   Did you see my previous post?

http://bitcoincard.org/ <---this project could help.

I am concerned about the tracking abilities tho, but the video on the website says one can choose different IDs. If you can completely deactivate the device (no NFC!), as well as change the ID (not the User ID, but the ID of the device itself) or if there were no unique IDs, then this could be a really good solution.

Hard switch on the antenna would be nice  :)

blueadept

wrote aboutt his a while back:  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=152334.0

Envision a 3-D printed plastic coin that has the privkey printed inside it. The only way to get at it is to break the coin open.

It is techically feasible to design an open source 3D printer software that could be married to a custom bitcoin client. That way the privkey could be encrypted end-to-end, and the only way to know the privkey is to break open the printed coin.

The privkey would be printed on a vertical plane sandwiched closely between two other vertical planes. This way the privkey cannot be observed during the printing process.

The trick is to prove that the privkey actually has value / has not been copied.

Wow, that's something new. Greaat idea, not without it's problems, but still!

Which side doesn't have Internet ... the sender or the recipient (or both)?

From another thread:

Won't work, as it loads the unspent outputs of the input addresses to generate a transaction to sign.

Can you generate a 'spend all unspents' transaction without a list of input keys?

Just give the recipient your privkeys.

That's all in the software magic.

I like the idea of a handheld radio that can send a transaction (say over GMRS or MURS, but that might not be legal) to a receiver that would then send it over the Bitcoin network.

Sure, there wouldn't be a whole lot of use for it given the ubiquity of smart phones, but I like the idea of not depending (as much) on a mobile internet connection. Not to mention the device would be Bitcoin centric and therefore more secure.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_over_Avian_Carriers

Bonded/insured company for xxx value insurance per coin? Would an insurance company even touch it?

Printed keypair tokens are the ultimate anonymous transaction. No way to tell if the coins changed hands, or if they are accessible by anyone at all.  Long strings of transactions could be completed with no paper trail at all, digital or otherwise.

It's not really new though - three letter agencies have been doing this kind of stuff for years: https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_drop

Combined with Geocaching it might be fun though!

See: http://www.geocaching.com/ and http://www.opencaching.com/

You honor us with your presence. Ladies and gentlemen say hello to one of the first members of the forum.

I'm of no importance at all really. Some of us just had to be here first, that's all.

I probably indirectly helped some here get very rich indeed though, myself not included.

How to start a movement: http://www.ted.com/talks/derek_sivers_how_to_start_a_movement.html

I guess I can say that I had the honor of communicating with Satoshi though.  8)

Anyway, lets not send this topic way of base now.

Well, I know a lot of people that would love to have talked to Satoshi directly. Don't want to off topic anymore so I'll leave you with a simple - Welcome Back!

Lloyd's of London will underwrite pretty much anything.  I'd imagine the transactions would have to be pretty large before it would be efficient to insure them, though.