How does Bitcoin handle it's metro-centric problem?

[Carlton Banks]

You're in the countryside. Or the desert. Or on a mountainside. Or on a boat.

Bitcoin rules the world. Maybe we're in 2018 or somesuch year. You need to pay Bitcoins. Circumstances that make the paymnet necessary are sudden and unpredicted. No mobile internet coverage. No Bitcoins. Sad faces.

Satellite mobiles? Maybe. Have you seen the size of those things? They're like the original Magnum PI suitcase phones.



Bitcoin can't do it on it's own, it will be strictly the currency of the fast life until this particular gap is closed. Or....

[DeathAndTaxes]

Two possibilities.

1) Bitcoin physical tokens.

or

2) Bitcoin isn't used.  Bitcoin doesn't have to be used by 100% of people for 100% of their transactions for it to be successful.

[Barek]

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

 

[Carlton Banks]

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

 

Big lols.

Two possibilities.

1) Bitcoin physical tokens.

or

2) Bitcoin isn't used.  Bitcoin doesn't have to be used by 100% of people for 100% of their transactions for it to be successful.

I'd like to think the 21st century has a few more technological barrier breakings up it's sleeves. When that happens I don't know. Thinking about that in the round; we don't have de-centralised mobile phone technology yet. Who's working on that? What part of the EM spectrum is useful? I'm suddenly reminded of an ArsTechnica article talking about innovations in pan-spectral radio transceivers....

Are we due a new p2p mobile telephony standard that can leverage short and long distance hops, with TCP/IP-like routing automation and efficiency? Could this be the foundations for a potential meshnet reality? That could be one powerful meshnet implementation if it could get global coverage without having to rely on mobile nodes being in the right place at the right time. LW radio crosses the Atlantic between Europe and the US, with all this carrier wave innovation we've had since the dawn of analogue radio transmissions, could we leverage some half usable bandwidth to make an/the internet World War resistant?

[gluk64]

What about offline bitcoin cheques? In absence of internet, one could create a signed transaction, print it with a QR-code and hand to the receiver. It wouldn't protect against double-spending, but the real cheques also do not - so there must be certain trust degree included.

[Carlton Banks]

What about offline bitcoin cheques? In absence of internet, one could create a signed transaction, print it with a QR-code and hand to the receiver. It wouldn't protect against double-spending, but the real cheques also do not - so there must be certain trust degree included.

How can you be sure that the public key on the cheque is funded to the face value though? When you're in the hypothetical desert/rainforest/mountainside situation, where internet access is too far away to do a blockchain query, or indeed to just do a straight-up transaction?

[bluemeanie1]

You're in the countryside. Or the desert. Or on a mountainside. Or on a boat.

Bitcoin rules the world. Maybe we're in 2018 or somesuch year. You need to pay Bitcoins. Circumstances that make the paymnet necessary are sudden and unpredicted. No mobile internet coverage. No Bitcoins. Sad faces.

Satellite mobiles? Maybe. Have you seen the size of those things? They're like the original Magnum PI suitcase phones.



Bitcoin can't do it on it's own, it will be strictly the currency of the fast life until this particular gap is closed. Or....

see: Offline Transactions.

[Mondy]

by 2018 it could be gone

[gluk64]

How can you be sure that the public key on the cheque is funded to the face value though? When you're in the hypothetical desert/rainforest/mountainside situation, where internet access is too far away to do a blockchain query, or indeed to just do a straight-up transaction?

You can't, I pointed that out. You have to trust your partner. Just as you have to trust someone, who is issuing a cheque for you, no difference. But at least you can issue a cheque, and the partner can use it later without your participation.

This is just one of the possible options. We're comparing bitcoins to other means of exchange, not to some ideal magical currency In the desert you got no phone banking either, and gold could be too heavy to carry.

[AnonyMint]

No landline telephones? No cell phone coverage?

No reading material?

So I guess this for people who still can't read and write?

Yacht owners tend to afford satellite phones.