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Title: Meatspace hacking? [from a merchant's perspective] Post by: postcronicita on July 14, 2012, 09:34:13 PM Hi all,
I'm planning a stall for one of those festivals swarming with free spirits. Should they have bitcoins, we want to accept them. So the issue is, what's the easiest way to conduct bitcoin transactions somewhere in the woods, where internet connectivity is not necessarily a given? Title: Re: Meatspace hacking? [from a merchant's perspective] Post by: blakdawg on July 15, 2012, 04:41:03 AM Seems like physical Bitcoins a la https://www.casascius.com/ would be a good match for your situation. I don't know how many people are running around with them - perhaps it would be an interesting business to buy a bunch of them and sell them for USD along with a booklet explaining BTC for freedom-minded people who have not yet been introduced to BTC.
Title: Re: Meatspace hacking? [from a merchant's perspective] Post by: inglian on July 15, 2012, 04:51:27 AM Any electronic communication at all? SMS is becoming ubiquitous in most US backcountry areas, even where it was unthinkable a few years ago.
Title: Re: Meatspace hacking? [from a merchant's perspective] Post by: finkleshnorts on July 15, 2012, 05:08:10 AM Offline transactions, to be sent at a later point in time. See brainwallet.org.
Title: Re: Meatspace hacking? [from a merchant's perspective] Post by: postcronicita on July 15, 2012, 01:34:43 PM Thanks for the answers. Buying casascius coins sounds like a nice idea, but I don't have a lot of cash to invest in that kind of thing. I'll talk to the festival organizers about it though, cheers for the idea.
I forgot to mention: the festival is in Europe, in Romania to be more precise. SMS would do the job. I have found only one SMS-to-Bitcoin wallet application that would work here, on the http://blockchain.info/ site. I'll look into how safe it is. I'm assuming some people will have Android phones, in that case wouldn't it be a good idea to also print a QR code off this site http://qr.ma.eatgold.com/index.php and use that? Title: Re: Meatspace hacking? [from a merchant's perspective] Post by: DublinBrian on July 15, 2012, 02:01:08 PM If you have SMS coverage then you should have GPRS data service. That should be enough bandwidth for light clients like Bitcoin Spinner. But you should check with Jan on the Spinner thread.
The second option is if you trust the customers not to attempt a double spend attack, you can accept transactions without any confirmations. So the merchant will have a laptop with a recent copy of the blockchain, a wifi router used as a LAN, but without it connected to the internet.This will allow you to receive payments from other users on the LAN, but not receive confirmations from miners. Title: Re: Meatspace hacking? [from a merchant's perspective] Post by: MoneyIsDebt on July 15, 2012, 03:01:27 PM Please post back your experiences. If people actually approach you with bitcoins, in the woods as you put it, it'd be interesting to hear. Especially if they carry caucas.. however it is spelled
Title: Re: Meatspace hacking? [from a merchant's perspective] Post by: nimda on July 15, 2012, 04:00:21 PM How about using Coinapult as an SMS wallet?
Title: Re: Meatspace hacking? [from a merchant's perspective] Post by: Xenland on July 15, 2012, 04:05:19 PM If i had to do a transaction in the woods... well The problem with that is you can't check the balance so the point of failure here is that there could be no BTCs in it for you if you traded products or services and BTC on the spot. If you trust the person you are dealing with and believe you are confident with trusting this failure with this person, then I would probably put Bitcoins on new Bitcoinaddress in divisions of 5BTC per address, print out the private keys and bring them with me and then purchase something for 5 BTC by handing the other party with one private key containing 5 BTC. (Maybe bring along a few 1 BTC and 0.5 BTC address too?). Thats the best idea i have.
Title: Re: Meatspace hacking? [from a merchant's perspective] Post by: Xenland on July 15, 2012, 04:09:26 PM Hmm we could also have some BTC company start a Bitcoin Paper money thing and some how incorporate it so there is an offline way to check if a piece of paper is valid....Users would download an app that could scan QR codes and verify that the piece of paper is valid some how offline. wait idk if that would work
Title: Re: Meatspace hacking? [from a merchant's perspective] Post by: blakdawg on July 15, 2012, 06:55:27 PM Hmm we could also have some BTC company start a Bitcoin Paper money thing and some how incorporate it so there is an offline way to check if a piece of paper is valid....Users would download an app that could scan QR codes and verify that the piece of paper is valid some how offline. wait idk if that would work What would prevent double-spending in this model? Title: Re: Meatspace hacking? [from a merchant's perspective] Post by: Xenland on July 16, 2012, 01:55:54 AM Hmm we could also have some BTC company start a Bitcoin Paper money thing and some how incorporate it so there is an offline way to check if a piece of paper is valid....Users would download an app that could scan QR codes and verify that the piece of paper is valid some how offline. wait idk if that would work What would prevent double-spending in this model? Another great point why i wouldn't do offline transactions :) |