Bitcoin Forum

Hi all,

I have completed a working prototype of a Bitcoin enabled Wifi Hotspot running on a Raspberry Pi. I will upload a video in hopefully the next 5-7 days once I've made the web pages a little bit prettier.

Anyway, here's what it does :

1) creates an open SSID called "BitcoinWifi". Allows any connection to a bitcoin node on port 8333 (thus enabling easier wifi payments).

2) any webpage gets redirected to a payment page on which the user can pay an administrator - adjustable fee for access ( so far just 1hr or 24hr but these are just initial timeslots).

3) upon payment (there is a bitcoin formatted URI on the payment page above which should enable *most* bitcoin smartphone wallets to go directly to their payment mechanism), the redirect is disabled and full internet access is allowed. The wired subnet that the router is on is blocked *apart* from the actual "real" router for internet access (so users will not be able to access anything on your network).

4) after the time period, the restriction is automatically started again.

The device is zero config to get running. Just plug into a 5v usb micro and ethernet into your router. To extract the bitcoins, you'll need to login as an administrator (password will be included in the package), and just go to an admin page and put in an address to which the bitcoin balance will be forwarded.

I am going to be marketing it shortly (as mentioned, just need to tidy up the webpages as they look awful - I'm a developer first and foremost!).

I will be selling the device as a Rasp Pi + WiFi USB + SD Card for probably about 1 btc to start with (which is pretty much the sum of the parts) once I have a demo online (I am tempted to put up a pre-order page but I know how much you all love those - "shipping in two weeks" (tm) promises). However, I am collecting names, contact details of interested parties now.

Feel free to get in touch with me via this post or PM and we can exchange email addresses.

Quite cool.

Have you thought of a way to create a wifi bridge that is funded (and funds) with Bitcoin? The implication being enough of those could create a completely wireless mesh network funded with Bitcoin ;)

Will you be selling these???????

When in a reasonable state, yes. For about the sum of the parts (ie so it should be the same price as a rasp pi, wifi + sd card) , with perhaps a very small markup for the support.

Hmm, I don't think that you quite understand what a wifi bridge actually is.  It is not a mesh node.  Still, it's an interesting idea.  Wifi sucks for mesh work, though.

Maybe enable access to blockchain.info, mtgox, coinbase, Inputs, et al for those users who don't run full Bitcoin nodes.

I'm interested.  There are some raspberry pi clones out there that are integrating a wi-fi chip and on board memory that could make this much cheaper.  Any reason this couldn't accept dollars via paypal or similar, as well?

Yes, this is part of what I forwarded to OP, the possibility of accessing your "hosted wallet". However there is also the security element to this, since the operator of a "BitcoinWifi" access point could be shady. So there might need to be some way of knowing you connected to a authentic non modified "BitcoinWifi" spot.

I am thinking checksum md5 on a locked firmware, or something. Very exciting project though.

How many packets per second will a pi route?

From professional experience, I can tell you that the average routing hardware (typical OpenWrt routers) will not be sufficient to actually handle the load from only a few dozen users sharing a simple DSL connection.

I've resorted to mikrotik hardware for that reason. You might want to have a look at their stuff, just a suggestion.


Edit: also, maybe if you just setup the pi as a RADIUS server, you could enable bitcoin payments for practically all the generic hotspot solutions on the market.

In the case of blockchain.info, even the hotspot operator can't steal your coins. Also, I think https (hardened against BREACH) should be sufficient, yes?

I couldn't even operate on a Raspberry PI.

Not sure what the limit is right now. Will be testing with maybe 5-10 users shortly but .... if it's that busy then I would state that is a sign of success and therefore we can dedicate more time into making a more efficient hotspot.

Yes the idea is to have a white list maintained by the owner so they can add their own store site, web site etc etc (as well as having many bitcoin related sites as well).

It would be nice if it were to run a full Bitcoin node at the same time, to support the network. I'm totally interested in one! I was thinking of something similar myself, but would rather buy it from you. Although to be honest- why not open source it? There isn't an enormous amount of money to be made on it, while on the flip side you would be doing a great service for bitcoin. None the less I would be interested!

If, by "full" you mean one that can mine/hash, it's not worthwhile.

Guys, if you think that he's doing it wrong, then do it yourself.  Otherwise leave him be to make his own discoveries.

I'm not saying he does it wrong. Just giving advice from a few years' practical experience with hotspot solutions in hotel environments.

The longer I think about it, I'd absolutely suggest a bitcoin RADIUS server. That would scale very well with OpenWrt access points and whatever DSL router you might wana use. Could probably become a top-seller when it's combined with a small display, thermal printer and a few buttons to produce hotspot tickets as well.


Edited because I f***ed up the quotes.

No, a full node does not mine.

The green 'https://' in the address bar will tell you if your connected securely. Don't need to worry about that.

A local copy of the blockchain isn't particularly useful, either.  We are well past the point of diminishing returns on the 'multiple copies keeps data safe' method.

Developing low-cost WiFi hotspots with a Bitcoin time charge is a worthy project.  Some people do not have their own dedicated internet provider.  Imagine if they could access one of these from home, provided by an entrepreneurial neighbor.  Multiply that by hundreds.  "Make big money selling internet access to your neighbors!"  It remains to be seen if Raspberry Pi is optimal for it, but it makes sense to start with a low-cost method first.  Many of the innovations will be applicable to other hardware configurations as well.

I wish you well.

I really like this project. Keep up the good work!

I also think this is a great project (in particular if you plan to not only sell at about the parts' costs but also to release the software under a free license!), but I doubt you could earn a lot of money.  Isn't the trend rather going towards free WiFi by cities and such?  I currently pay about 20 EUR per month for my home broadband connection, so I think for someone to actually "buy" internet access from his/her neighbour instead of getting their own it would have to be less than 10 EUR per month or so, and probably even still less.

Not to mention that my contract would surely be terminated immediately and I possibly even sued by my ISP if they found out that I sold my home connection to strangers - I didn't read the details, but this is guaranteed to be prohibited by the ToS of almost any service I can imagine.  (At least for private home owners.)

this is really cool, would def be interesting in buying one

Nice work! Everyone is giving free wifi these days though haha.

Would be great if you could claim this 20 BTC bounty: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=7998.0

You'd need a 16GB SD card and the CPU on the pi is really slow to check the blockchain.