Bitcoin Forum

This was posted 30 minutes ago from one of my socials, one of the group that I'd follow, Crypto Crunch App, posted this Photo (below)

https://i.postimg.cc/MHvPJ27T/qwszx.jpg

credits to the owner of the image


I found out that it is true, you can read more here  https://cointelegraph.com/news/top-venezuelan-exchange-launches-support-for-offline-bitcoin-transfers  (https://cointelegraph.com/news/top-venezuelan-exchange-launches-support-for-offline-bitcoin-transfers)

What do you guys think about this? I don't think this is possible, not until now. I'm still out of words for this news.

Well, technically you're not sending via the internet, but ask that service provider to send your money or pay for whatever it is. It's like you ask your friend to send some bitcoin with their network while you're still taking a bath. No internet needed (by you), isn't it?

It's not groundbreaking imo. Several services are doing the same thing, you can find them on the Project Development board.

It's not a new idea. There are couple of services which offer cryptocurrency transfer through sms. In addition, Venezuela has always been a crypto friendly space. However, good to see this because it will be now more easier to send crypto.

Hmm. so it is just like a 3rd party right? even when you're not connected to the internet or offline you can still send a crypto by requesting the one who holds your fund. Even it is not as much as we fantasized, I'd still want to experience it tho, it looks so cool to have this, it's like having an assistant to pay for what you bought.

yeah, I saw it, thanks man. President Nicolas Maduro did a great job for letting this thing to happen since 30% of the country is not able to access the internet, and we also know what is happening to Venezuela a bit too long already.

It amazing to see people thinking very deep in a way to make crypto transfer easy. I only know of airwire blockchain that allow people to receive crypto via email, Facebook etc but hearing about receiving via SMS is another interesting story especially for some old folks that do not use the internet well. This will make it possible for people like that to recieve and send crypto

Well, perhaps in the end still need an internet connection in order to run and confirmed the node for the Bitcoin transactions upon broadcasting on it. If you heard about the Samourai wallet, I have heard that they can have a transaction on Bitcoin offline through goTenna.
Indeed, we admire this kind of discoveries and maybe someday they will found that Bitcoin is always the best choice for contactless payment that it is very needy when disaster comes like pandemic COVID-19.

The SMS functionality is, at least at this stage, only available between Criptolago’s users. Therefore, the SMS is really going to trigger a movement on the ledger’s platform, and is not really a crypto transfer outside of the platform’s ecosystem.

See https://twitter.com/criptolago/status/1246866980843524099 (in Spanish).

It's similar to online banking. You never hold your coins. The wallet service would hold your coin and you can ask them to send the coin to some address via a SMS and after receiving the SMS, the wallet service would send the coins using internet.

You have a point here, it's not really a new idea there are already some people who did this project and so many articles online.

It could really be handy many times but I wonder if this is totally official, it discusses a lot here in the forum and a lot of users are worried sending funds using Bluetooth, radio signals, etc. If this is officially used I guess it is already safe to use in Venezuela but I doubt it at this time. For sure it would be a great option to uses just in case if it is already safe to use here in bitcoin and other cryptocurrency.

Sounds interesting and I dont know how does it work, maybe the SMS will received might just a confirmation but not totally made a transaction through offline. There is always the internet to verify and to confirm by every transaction.

They are not only one who discovered Bitcoin sending through SMS.

Trivia: Did you know that Bitcoin can send through Radio Wave?
https://coincodex.com/article/6386/did-you-know-you-can-send-bitcoin-via-radio-waves/

It so glad that that are new developed ways to send bitcoin or other cryptocurrency, it seems like cryptocurrency is evolving and spreading around the world, this using of SMS to send cryptocurrency will be soon known to everyone or in different countries and if this thing will be successful then I think they would adopt it because I think that is somehow useful because they don't need internet connection to transfer data, some of the people needs to transfer money when emergency then there are times also that they have no internet connection so they don't even proceed the transactions. I am hoping that there would be some ways that will exists for the future of cryptocurrency, this will be so good if this will happen. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency will be more known by other countries.

I have heard about that news before and this is so great, having this kind of way of sending cryptocurrency will be so accommodating because we don't need internet connection just to send money, which is really good especially for those people who don't have internet connection everyday. I hope that sending bitcoin through the use of text message will be adopted on our country because internet connection in our country is not too good or not stable, we have that so poor connection compared to other countries, so if this thing will be in our land then it would be great for us, there will be so many miners and bitcoin holders will be happy when it happens.

Using mobile services to send and receive crypto payments isn't a new idea but one previously proposed. However, I'm not s excited about this new method of crypto payment since in my opinion it only increases the risk of loss. Think about it, with this new service there's also a new third party that you need to worry about and ensure they're not trying to scam you or have your details sold to other parties. For me its almost too of an unnecessary risk.

In this case, you are not really sending bitcoin at all. All you can do here is transfer balance between users of the same exchange - no transaction is being made, nothing is being broadcast, and nothing is recorded on the blockchain. It would be like if I sent an SMS to my friend saying "I owe you $50". No money is actually moving or changing hands, all that is changing is the exchange's internal records of how much it owes to each user.

Having said that, it is entirely possible to make a bitcoin transaction without an internet connection, and you don't need a third party to be holding your funds to do so, like you suggest. All you need is a way to connect to someone or something which will broadcast a transaction on your behalf. You can generate and sign a transaction entirely offline, and then send it to someone else to be broadcast, be that via SMS, radiowaves, over a local network, on paper, in person, by mail, etc.

So thats means its a third party services you are not the one who send the payment but that sms services provider.


Good idea, but the question is how secured will it be if you are only using thier services and not you are the one who have control on your money. And i am sure having that service will also ask for additional fees.

Even in the US you can transfer cryptocurrency transfer sms using Lite.im.
Also you can  find   4 Easy Ways to Send Cryptocurrency Using SMS (https://blocksdecoded.com/send-cryptocurrency-sms/)

I doubt it's impossible though. Humans think up of weird things that could actually be helpful, and This pretty much just recycles the usage of SMS systems which have been around for a  few decades now, so I doubt they'd have that much difficulties implementing a system that could transfer crypto through that. And besides, based on what I understand, it's more like them informing a 3rd party that they would like to transfer funds from theirs to another. They'd basically ask others to transfer money for them. It's kind of similar to how you just mail a friend or something and ask them to buy you something in a convenience store or the like.

Please don't tell me people in Venezuela are stick rocking a Nokia 6210? I doubt people even make applications for that relic anymore.

There are already a large number of ways to make Bitcoin transactions offline, e.g. via the Glacier protocol and partially signed transaction formation.

Although I've never seen an SMS version, this indicates that they still need to have some cellular connectivity, which obviously won't be useful if the whole network goes down.

Also, it appears that wherever is processing the SMS's is connected to the internet... Otherwise how does it broadcast the transaction? So much missing info, but I am pretty sure the internet is involved somewhere along the line.

This kind of payment transferring of funds it is quite right because it is easier just sending the address to the provider and they manage now the transaction easily still it takes a lot of time before the people will adopt this kind of transaction because still, it requires third-party software to use to make more comfortable to use. It is quite a good need because many people today are using bitcoin or crypto to transfer their funds. As a user too of crypto, this is more efficient and hood because not all the time, I have my internet on my side, and still, you need to require to find some internet just to transfer your funds. This kind of innovation is good.

It is good any many are glad when they first saw this news, if that is really implemented in cryptocurrency, it is less hassle and I think it is much secured. This will help us to prevent scammers and hackers to steal some cryptocurrency in our digital wallet that is manipulated with internet. This offline cryptocurrency transfer is much effective to those people who don't have that much access in the internet. Venezuela is great for developing this kind of invention that can help all cryptocurrency users to transfer their asset using just a cheap cellphone. Like what I've said, crypto is easy to steal most especially if the hackers are skilled enough to get your privacy and information. President Nicolas Maduro should be praised and acknowledge for doing this in their country.

I am also a follower of that page and like they said, this idea was already proposed and mentioned before.
And because of the application that Venezuela is doing then several medias cover it because it is working.
But if it isn't, I dont think that they will. Although looking to the positive that it brings, let us move forward for more transactions like this.

I remember a couple of projects working on sending BTC without the Internet. One is about the radio waves, and it was already mentioned in this thread. I am also pretty sure I've looked through another one that involves satellites. What seems disappointing is that people are saying it's not a real transfer when it comes to this particular project with SMS but rather an intermediary doing the work for you within their limited network. If the thing about radio waves in real Bitcoin transactions, then it should be possible to truly send BTC via SMS as well, but I guess that it's not the case in this project anyway.

It could be nice if we could finally send or transfer cryptocurrency offline but how would we know if it has been sent successfully?
We still need internet to verify that the transaction has been successful besides all of the transaction would need to be verified online so we could track all of the circulating crypto currency.

I think you will pay for the service because most of the people today now are using the cryptocurrency and before you can send your money or funds into other wallet it requires internet and this kind of project I think it is good too but the difference I think is the payment if you think it is the same payment but can transfer even you are offline it is more efficient and not quite hassle because it is more faster because you are just sending the address to the other party. But we don't know if this will gonna become popular soon because not all the time we are connected into the internet.

Yes, it can be said that there is a third party that manages the crypto balance that we have, just as online banking can manage our finances to make transactions via SMS without having to use an internet connection. In my opinion, the existence of crypto transactions using SMS has advantages and disadvantages that we need to pay attention to, its advantages can make it easier for everyone who has a bad internet connection, and the drawbacks, the balance we have of course will be fully regulated by third parties and transaction costs incurred certainly will be bigger.

It is, and there are several projects which allow you to do this. This most well known is probably Samourai wallet - https://www.samouraiwallet.com/offline. Once you sign a transaction on your offline wallet, you can broadcast it via a GoTenna mesh network or via SMS.

You can use a service such as Blockstream Satellite (https://blockstream.com/satellite/) to receive the most recent blocks and keep your node up to date. That way you will know when your transaction has been confirmed without ever needing an internet connection. Other than cost of the hardware to set up your satellite receiver, it is free to receive the latest blockchain data by satellite.

Just read about samurai wallet just now but I guess the same principle is used to this post. It looks like running under several conditions using antennas, and sms will act like the trigger to let the transaction be broadcast however it is not what we wanted right? If I'm reading you guys right, we wanted an easy peasy transaction with just a single text right? It looks more complicated than what we really think of, impossible to make I guess.

There are still a lot to do for us just like the confirmation, how do we determine if the transaction was confirmed if we are offline and we are just using our smartphone?
Using the Blockstream Satellite needs a lot too, coz you will be needing a small satellite antenna and a USB receiver to sync the blocks in your node. Another problem is there are limited coverage of this satellites so other places is ineligible for using Blockstream.

I think you are misunderstanding. It will let you transmit a transaction either via a mesh network of antennas or by sending an SMS in the usual way. It's not sending an SMS over a mesh network.

There is no way to know if a transaction has confirmed without being able to receive data somehow. If you don't have an internet connection, then the next best thing is using a satellite connection. Anything beyond that is impractical - there is far too much data to keep a node synced via a mesh network or SMS. The best you could achieve would be having a trusted third party with internet access keep an eye out for your transaction and send you an SMS once it has confirmed.

Earlier, I also saw a post regarding Bitcoin transfer through sms but it is still not feasible. I only know of crypto transfer using radio waves and towers which won't need the help of internet. It is good to see that now, through the help of sms, it is now possible to send your friend some Bitcoins using third party network. I just hope that this way is secure though?

Offline cryptocurrency transfer? Is this safe if it will be implemented? I think it would be a big problem or question because we all know that when it is offline it is just a
matter of security just like for example in a network it is very easy to established a network with a offline method but the access will be easy than having a online method
right? So if the cryptocurrency transfer became offline then it would be really hard.

So there are two possible ways you can send bitcoin through an SMS message.

The first way is when you sign a transaction form your own wallet, and use an SMS message to broadcast that signed message to the network. This way is completely safe, provided you use it correctly. Once you have signed a transaction on your own wallet, it cannot be changed or altered in any way without being made invalid. You need to trust the third party service or person to actually broadcast your transaction that you sent them in an SMS, but the most they could do is refuse to broadcast it, meaning your bitcoin simply stay in your own wallet. They are unable to modify your transaction to steal your bitcoin, or anything of that nature.

The second method, which is the method being used by the service being discussed in this thread, is when you are trusting a third party to hold all your coins on your behalf, and you are simply using SMS messages to send instructions about what you would like to do with your account. In addition to all the usual security risks of storing your coins with a third party, you are also at risk of someone impersonating you by either physically or electronically taking control of your phone and sending SMS instructions on your behalf, SIM jacking your phone number, or even linking their own phone number to your account. In all cases, someone could send SMS instructions to the third party to transfer all your coins out to the attacker's address.

As with all things in crypto, storing your coins with a third party is inherently risky, and this is no different.

Well at first glance, it seems offline but even sending basic SMS requires a network data and medium for you to be able to send it to the other side.
I've seen another app having the same goal to send crypto through SMS.
Not sure if offline transactions are possible, but I believe that's one of crypto's weakness that it is dependent in the internet.

Nope!
Because that's a 6310i (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_6310i) not a 6210 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_6210) in the picture  ;D
That aside, you can still make SMS purchases wen with modern phones, you still receive 2fpa confirmations via sms, right?

Now, the most important thing about this "breakthrough" and 'breathtaking' service.
You can send coins offline ..only if you already have coins in your wallet, which you can't deposit if you're offline!
So /thread

Now, it seems we have some people who have no clue where Venezuela is but still shitposting in this topic

You have no idea what this is about and how it really works, right?

Yeah, Venezuela is great, too bad they've discovered this five years after private firms have done it in other countries.
And it's not Venezuela doing it, it's a private company!

President Maduro should be put on a pedestal and acknowledge for what he did for the country!
And forced to not leave that pedestal till everyone has paid his respects.
Better cast him in bronze to make sure he stays there for a few centuries.  ;D

With this kind of innovation that people in Venezuela could send or transfer their cryptocurrency through sms/messaging only, it might boost adaptation and gain fans in cryptocurrency that more people will be inspired and have an opportunity to use cryptocurrency that they can now use it even without the help of internet connection.

The only true flaw of cryptocurrency is that it relies on telecommunications to work. Telecommunications are all controlled by the government. We've seen many examples around the world of phone and internet connections being restricted or made unavailable completely. For this reason I think that the crypto space could really benefit from a government-less worldwide telecommunications network. Free access to the internet is vital to the functioning of any cryptocurrency.

Sending transaction via sms is a great way as a high technology for transferring by using data as digital payment for safety and security without any high tension with cryptographic design to transact of some combination of different kinds of payment.Off line transaction is possible and active because of the automatic device server combine with a solar system energy to receive a payment and prevent losing of data as a hightect frequency loader of transaction.

In a world where you're under mandatory quarantine, banks are closed etc, sending crypto via SMS sounds revolutionary to me if it's the decentralized and secure way. You could store, send & receive without having to trust a third party that could cut off your rights (banks closing down..). It'd be our opportunity to shine as a decentralized community.

As o_e_l_e_o said above, once you have signed a tx you want to broadcast, it can't be altered. Therefore, using crypto offline through SMS only could actually be the best thing especially during hard times & for newbies because chances of having your funds stolen by silly mistakes and malware are slight (correct me if I'm wrong). Using an airgapped wallet together with an offline possibility of spending decentralized currencies. Do we even need anything else?

This is another step for crypto currency as they were able to find a solution to those places who have no internet connection. Sending money via message is very smart approach and I hope that it cannot be breached easily by the hackers so the other exchanges will adapt it someday.

It will surely help to solve the problem of crypto acceptance as one of the hindrances are those places where internet connection or electricity is not available as they cannot use crypto at all. But if this will be possible to any exchanges out there then it is very helpful and I really love to see how it will work also.

Seems more of a hassle and a marketing gimmick to me than anything else. The whole concept relies on the fact that a intermediary is required for the transaction to happen and all this does is to make a request to them to transfer the funds internally between their systems. It doesn't involve the Bitcoin blockchain at all and in a way, it's just like how fiat transfer can be done by SMS too.

IMO, this is quite pointless and isn't something worth talking about.

The OP's statement revealed that it was an exchange service which meant it was a type of custodial wallet. In addition to the risks in the custodian wallet in general, the addition of SMS features will create new risks such as encryption, your device/phone number being controlled by someone else, or other risks that have not been thought of.
So far, I don't know whether all mobile devices or SIM card providers set SMS security to be encrypted by default or not. However this needs to be considered.

So what is so decentralized and so revolutionary about this?
For all the SMS you need a broadcasting service which in all cases is centralized.
If you want truly decentralization you will have to go with a GoTenna but..somebody in 2 hops from you has to have an internet connection.

Which brings us to the obvious question, why not use a traditional way of sending, since I find it hard to believe the scenario where all internet is offline and a guy 1 km away (if we talk about cities) has a running connection.

And another and also obvious question..
If banks are closed down if you don't have internet...how do you buy BTC?
Common, this is not Mad Max!  ;D

LOL  ;D It looks like a click bait.
It's definitely not an 'Offline cryptocurrency transfer' since the transaction is indirectly being done online.
It's just that you are sending a message and the crypto exchange is doing the transfer for you.
Not a big deal in my opinion.

I guess the above user dont understand how the whole sms and call make through the phone works when he said sending BTC through sms is an opportunity to breath as decentralized is concern. But, per your question what means do you think ones can send crypto or buy BTC when there is no internet because i personally dont trust the sms sending way.

Without connecting to nodes it is impossible to make a transaction so this is done by alternative way when you don't have internet connection.And I don't think in 2020 internet availability is not a problem and in next couple of years the whole world will roll out to 5G internet connections. :)

Sending crypto currencies to another user using messaging service sounds bullshit. From what I understand is that the exchange (which I never heard of) will have access to your account balance and everything. Once you send crypto currencies through SMS (you will have to send it to a user having an account in that exchange and has their phone number associated with it), they receiver will receive the coin in his exchange wallet. This sounds really impracticable and security wise, not safe/secure at all.

If it was an exchange service or a type of custodial wallet, then it is actually a third party holding the funds of its user and they will do everything that was requested to them. I think the risks that you are talking about are about the security of your funds, however, if they are actually legit and they are permitted to run their business by their government means that the users do not need to worry about their safety, I guess?

Great news!!! Though it is not a new idea for using off line method, applying it in transferring bitcoin is surely another stage advancement of crypto globalization. Countries of the world are gradually realizing the necessity of bitcoin. I hope, all the countries of the world will give the legality of bitcoin and every person will be able to use it in their each and every transaction in near future when bitcoin will acquire the place of fiat money and no internet will be required to transfer. 'ONLY AN SMS IS ENOUGH'.

I don't know how it really works but base on my understanding there will be a third party suppose to be the messaging company, ironically bitcoin is made to eliminate the third parties like banks or the middle-man. What I imagine on how it works is that your message acts like your signature once you send it to them they will pass the funds or the crypto to your recipient just like what you are doing in the banks to make transactions. I don't want to call impracticable or some sort of silly idea, I just don't want to say sorry for my words in the future.

Thats correct. SMS message procedure are done through the sender to service tower to SMSC(Short Message Service Center which is centralized) to service tower and to the receiver.
I don't see any reason a genuine crypto enthusiast that values his privacy will use such a platform.

Hm. It seems so good. Well, even that is not a new idea for me it is. This is my first time to see a transaction not directly using an Internet. However, it is more guarantee for me to be in online transaction than in offline services. It seems to be safety and well-recorded when using internet to transfer cryptocurrency.

So they're using Nokia 3310 for crypto transactions ?  :D
Well jokes aside, i think its not very safe way because there are methods in hacking simcard that was recently discovered in sim providers, this attack can intercept sms through malware other methods is hacking the sms provider directly.

I just hope that things wont get bad and devs quickly find vulnerabilities.

Such a service would be very popular among people who care about the security of their transactions. The easiest way to send cryptocurrencies offline is to simply transfer a paper wallet or hardware wallet from hand to hand.  :)

🤦🏽‍♂This is a project I had plans to look into. I remember a bit asking if it were possible and I firmly said yes. Behold, someone discovered it before me. Anyways, let's celebrate it cause it's quite a good thing. Sometimes we may not have the mobile data or network connection to come online and make the transaction. So it's a cool thing to see this.

yeah that means there is also internet that has being used,but yeah at least we don't need internet instantly specially when times that internet is not available while you need badly to send Bitcoin.
well we can never tell,because internet has been around for years but still there are places that has not been connected .

As of now we haven't got perfect solution on offline transfer of funds. With the increase of cryptocurrency usage around the globe the need for offline cryptocurrency transfer is much in need. Maybe the effective development of such an transfer support will enrich the usage of cryptocurrencies on small scale stores. By the same time it is a must to have the confirmation of transaction happen in a short time period which is recorded the proof of transaction.

Not just SMS , you can also send cryptocurrencies through the radio without any special equipments , therefore I do think it is indeed interesting but at the same time it is not that easy and feasible to be used everyday .
It is possible but at the same time I don't think we would need it until and unless we are in a warzone and we have no internet, nothing.
How about just mailing a paper wallet to the reciever , hiding it into a heat-sensitive ink somehow and Viola ! You have secretly sent Bitcoins overseas 😂 .

Correct, in the end they will still need the internet to proceed with the transaction. Maybe the SMS they will receive is just a temporary notification and proof that the Bitcoin transaction process is on the way. Once it will have an internet connection it will automatically be confirmed. But at least, they will find a solution like this especially if people are in the low internet connection area.

Generally speaking this could be good idea for offline transaction but still can't think about its commercial use.

I mean just imagine, you have to send money to someone then you need to send the texts to service provider anyway, and once they withdraw the money from your account then you have no idea whether the tx has been completed yet or not. For this you can't check it on blockhyper since you are not connected with the internet.

Again, go and manually ask your friend or service whether they got the payment or not.

Plus, you have to have internet connection for sometime to load your balance into wallet.

In addition to this, Im not sure if anyone really needs such kind of offline service in world of "INTERNET".

Individuals are shocked to contemplate making crypto moves simpler. I just know the airwear blockchain that permits individuals to get crypto by means of email, Facebook, and so on. In any case, another fascinating story to catch wind of accepting by means of SMS is particularly for some more established individuals who don't utilize the web well. This will make it feasible for such an individual to get and send crypto