That is a really fun idea, but it would require a lot of power in a low-power situation.

Let's hope the price of plutonium power sources comes down.  Otherwise, solar power is most likely.

Multiple ground stations are pretty much a given.  It is likely we will interact with a larger number of third party ground stations, rather than only run a few ground stations 100% ourselves.

A ground station can be pretty cheap.  A ground station can be as simple as a small satellite dish on top of a building, plus a controlling computer.

Frequency selection will be one of the biggest decisions.  That will trickle down to the ground stations (transmitters), users (receivers), governmental approvals, and other areas.

linearize was moved to

      https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/tree/master/contrib/linearize

As much as possible will be open source and open hardware.

However, sometimes you have to choose between space-ready hardware for $, or developing your own open hardware for $$$$ + time.

Fantasy.  Nobody donates, much less large sums.  This is a cute delusion.

While working as a volunteer core dev for years, I received a whopping...  ~30 BTC in donations.  https://blockchain.info/address/1BrufViLKnSWtuWGkryPsKsxonV2NQ7Tcj  The vast majority of that prior to 2013, leaving the monetary total well under $500 for years worth of work.

Donating will not bring down blockchain size.  Technically infeasible, even if donations work.  Which they don't.

Stalled, though I am aware of at least two people working on embedded projects based on libccoin.

This Christmas I'm hoping to finish the client.


Seems worth checking out.  Most key/value databases cannot scale to the millions of records and data access patterns that bitcoin requires, so it requires careful evaluation.

This thread, for the moment.  A website should be up soon.

Well, 27 BTC will get you one of the lots, at current prices...

During one of the meetings on this project, I learned that the ISS' Japanese module has a cubesat launcher...

Very pleased to announce a generous 25 BTC donation from BitcoinGrant.org, worth $27,000 as of this writing.

Updates will be posted to this thread (and eventually a website), once the aerospace engineers are fully contracted and engaged.

The meetings so far with engineers have been quite positive.  If the project proceeds as a non-profit, it is possible that amateur radio frequencies may be used for transmission, as another poster mentions upthread.

It is a natural consequence of the relay-everything design.

Lining up a few aerospace engineers for Phase 1.

There is now a donation address set up for this project, and am currently hoping to raise $10-20k for Phase 1.

       1M9MyyPsAak7zRjW4D96pTxDaAEpDDZLR7

Or contact me privately if you want a one-time-use donation address, or if you want to be identified on the list of donors as someone other than "anonymous donor".  Wallet funds for this project are stored and securely separately from my personal funds, for the record.  This is a donation, not an investment.

Rough cost estimates of a single cubesat:

• 1x Cubesat hardware and construction: $60-100k
• Launch: $1m
• Miscellaneous: $900k (ground station uses, licensing, insurance, other details)

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Bitcoins space project donation address is

     1M9MyyPsAak7zRjW4D96pTxDaAEpDDZLR7

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Let's not immediately believe every paper we read, especially ones without peer review.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1reuwq/vigorous_debate_over_shamirrons_supposedly/

That's not very stealthy.  You would immediately notice money not going where it is supposed to go.

And magic constants are rare in the bitcoin source code, so "send money to XXX address" would stick out as obvious.

You would have to be far more subtle than that.

Yes.  That's digital attestations.  Background Checks, Inc. can perform a background check on me, and then sign my identity "jgarzik (key 0x1234) passed our background check level 1 on date Y/M/D".  Anyone who trusts the signature of Background Checks Inc. may trust key 0x1234 as having passed a background check.

You may also offer this signature as hash(signature), and only reveal the actual signature privately upon request, to enhance privacy further.

Plug for my own identity tech spec: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Identity_protocol_v1

Response: http://garzikrants.blogspot.com/2013/11/solution-to-bitcoin-volatility.html

No.  Maybe a couple of months?

There are two hearings.  One on Monday, one on Tuesday.

OK, he did not quite say that, exactly...  <chuckle>

URL: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-18/u-s-agencies-to-say-bitcoins-offer-legitimate-benefits.html


Looking forward to attending the DC hearings in person tomorrow!

Anyone else going to be there?

It sounds like ZeroCoin v2 eliminates one major criticism, that of bloat.

But engineering hurdles remain:

• 1. Requires a hard fork
• 2. Any requirement that all transactions participate in mixing is a non-starter.  Some payment schemes bootstrap trust by intentionally being non-private, showing their bitcoin holdings and bitcoin payments with provable digital signatures.

Any forced 100% privacy scheme that prevented opt-in auditing would make life difficult for some existing users, who place value in the transparency of the system.

I would rather see automatic mixing and privacy built into every client.