An RF radio coin mined with analog circuits? Would be super different

[Altoidnerd]

As an analog electronics guy, I usually just sit and watch you nerds talk.  I've learned a lot about a lot of things while reading obsessively about bitcoin (you know what I'm talking about).

The cryptographic roots of a bitcoin-like currency do not necessarily require computers to be implemented.  For example, we could mine bitcoins by hand - I think somebody entertained this idea once and it was a very fun exercise.

If you further relax your notions of hash function, nonce, or any of the fundamental manipulations made by computers we use to mine coins, there certainly exist creative ways to implement a cryptocurrency. When I think of one mined with tuned analog circuits and broadcast over the amateur airwaves, I get tingles.  I think it could work.

There are ways in which this could really be a game changer, especially with efficiency...  it takes zero energy to receive and store a sufficiently high powered RF transmission.  Airwave BTC is TRULY decentralized requiring now service providers and in fact the network may even resemble a quantum computer with classically assisted digital channels. Anyway, back to reality....  

Has anyone ever heard of, first of all, any attempt to design a currency communicated via the conventional techniques known as hamming or amateur radio?  

Is there another weirder place on the internet where this discussion is better suited?  I have no concrete ideas and nothing to really bite on to develop the idea.

[wumpus]

It would be interesting to broadcast bitcoin blocks and transactions on shortwave radio, as it has a large range, it would make it possible to follow the network in areas without internet.

Bitcoin produces on average one block of max 1MB every 10 minutes.
That's ~1666 bytes per second on average, but it can be more.
So I suppose that's way too much for the available bandwidth?

[Altoidnerd]

It would be interesting to broadcast bitcoin blocks and transactions on shortwave radio, as it has a large range, it would make it possible to follow the network in areas without internet.

Bitcoin produces on average one block of max 1MB every 10 minutes.
That's ~1666 bytes per second on average, but it can be more.
So I suppose that's way too much for the available bandwidth?

With a sufficiently high frequency (and power to overcome noise), you can transmit anything.  Forgive me, is 1 byte a T or F value or are there 8 of those in a ... sorry.  My expertise is in physics and RF spectroscopy.  A byte is 8 smaller units yes?  We can figure out the channel capacity in a frequency band and see what we would need to broadcast BTC.  That's a good start.

I'm here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channel_capacity#Channel_capacity_in_wireless_communications

[theprofileth]

Um I think that being able to broadcast a currency that is only accessible via shortwave rf channels would sort of defeat the purpose of a currency, I mean how would you pay anyone let alone have transactions, confirmations, orphans? Couldn't someone just make a "louder" frequency and tune out the others and then say what is what? Just sounds of a pointless idea to me but if thats your interest then far be it from me to stifle you

[Altoidnerd]

Um I think that being able to broadcast a currency that is only accessible via shortwave rf channels would sort of defeat the purpose of a currency, I mean how would you pay anyone let alone have transactions, confirmations, orphans? Couldn't someone just make a "louder" frequency and tune out the others and then say what is what? Just sounds of a pointless idea to me but if thats your interest then far be it from me to stifle you

It's getting ahead of ourselves that will lead you to discount the idea.  What if your balance is logically equivalent to your available transmit power?  There are lots of ways I can imagine it working...RF as a medium is certainly mechanically capable of the cryptographic feat of logging transactions.  Analog is like reverse land...all of its shortcomings are the strengths of digital and vice versa. e.g. it wouldn't necessarily be a matter of "louder" that will encode messages. With the use of a finely tuned, continuous wave you have options (remember in analog you don't have a problem of accessing values between two integers.  You have infinite shit between every shit).

On channel capacity, I don't immediately see a problem with the figure you mentioned.  You need power for higher capacity and it is the log of the power that determines the size of the reliable transmission in bits.  Would like to confirm some hard facts about what would be needed to transmit bitcoin and go from there.  I may ask a wireless engineer for the details of this alone.  It will seem like a ridiculous amount of power required for certain, which can guide the principle on how to alter the design to be suitable for distributed wireless crosstalk.

[Altoidnerd]

It would be interesting to broadcast bitcoin blocks and transactions on shortwave radio, as it has a large range, it would make it possible to follow the network in areas without internet.

Bitcoin produces on average one block of max 1MB every 10 minutes.
That's ~1666 bytes per second on average, but it can be more.
So I suppose that's way too much for the available bandwidth?

I put in a query at /r/ece.  Those guys know their stuff and can make quick comparisons. They are also extremely critical of everything.

http://www.reddit.com/r/ECE/comments/1ss9o4/wireless_engineers_what_if_we_wanted_to_broadcast/

[tubbyjr]

Bit is 0 or 1, byte has 8 bits.

Implementing something like this would be amazing. To be honest, the number one thing that has kept me weary of bitcoin for so long, was its requirement for the internet. So if the internet goes poof, bitcoins would go along with it, but of course, so would just about everything else. But making a crypto centered around RF, could withstand a SHTF scenario, would love it!

[Altoidnerd]

Bit is 0 or 1, byte has 8 bits.

Implementing something like this would be amazing. To be honest, the number one thing that has kept me weary of bitcoin for so long, was its requirement for the internet. So if the internet goes poof, bitcoins would go along with it, but of course, so would just about everything else. But making a crypto centered around RF, could withstand a SHTF scenario, would love it!

The sheer thought of where this goes gets me really high blood pressure, like, I wanna change my career right now kind of motivation.  Must contain myself.  The /r/ece guys are a really great resource.  They have helped me a lot in my physics research.  I hope they can chime in here.

Who in the community led the way with the development of transistor logic for bitcoin and eventually asics?  Guessing they are busy guys now a days.  Transceiver ICs are, AFAIK an area of current research.  RF is hot as ever.

[Mitchell]

It would be interesting to broadcast bitcoin blocks and transactions on shortwave radio, as it has a large range, it would make it possible to follow the network in areas without internet.

That would be an awesome thing to do. Going to follow this thread, because it's quite interesting

[tubbyjr]

It's amazing to think that basically anyone in the world could have access to a virtual currency.

There are many issues, if it follows the blockchain system, confirmations will likely be awfully slow, depending upon the RF travel times, although I have read that FTL radio signals have been sent, the issue with them is they had no data.

Different RF signals could play different roles within the network. Longwave could basically be the pools and regional nodes, taking a fee, from shortwave 'miners'.

[Altoidnerd]

It's amazing to think that basically anyone in the world could have access to a virtual currency.

...the RF travel times although I have read that FTL radio ...

Regarding that concern, the speed of light is not going to slow anything down whatsoever.  Light speed is damn fast all over this earth in the air.  EM radiation travels decisively slower in coaxial lines, like it is certainly doing between you and I right now, than it does in air.  In standard RG-58 cable the velocity factor is about  2/3.  Of course signals can be going to satellites and back and then it can add up but I'm pretty sure that will not be the cause of issues that aren't already a problem with the speed of communications through fibers and transatlantic cables we have today.  Even when these issues present themselves, there will be answers...that stuff causes phase delay and messes with your bands - timing is not a problem at all though rest assured - at least not any more than it is right now (i'm guessing you're thinking for orphaned blocks)?

++upon reflection it is really too soon to worry about this.  In a continuous wave bitcoin, it is possible confirmations will not come in discrete blocks, but rather continuous probability distributions of being confirmed or simply rumored.  Can't let the digital/analog thing trip you up in the early stages++


-ok-
/r/ece told me this chart is reliable.  Ok cool.  



Now to see what if anything above 2.5 MHz is legal for use.  <5 MHz is really easy circuit design wise, lots of prepared ICs ready to handle these circuits.  Above that it gets dicey...

I interpret this to mean an FM signal on the minimal width of 2.5 MHz.  Carrier could be much higher, but doesn't necessarily need to be. Should fact check that.  30 MHz is also common for amateur, 800 MHz is video.

http://hflink.com/60meters/  

^^ hmmm this looks nice. Perhaps we cannot do this at 5 MHz, but that would make circuit design easier in that ICs will work easily without much RF spook.  A high carrier is fine and can be beneficial...  the bandWIDTH is the frequency you have to deal with electronics wise, and for all reasons I know you want it narrow.

Please also check I am not confusing bit and byte.

Note: From reddit just now -
save
dynerthebard
Just check out the chart on the page. 1.66Bps is about 13.33kbps, and the capacity shown on that graph is in Mbps, so you're safe on that count.

AltoidNerd [+5] 1 point 7 minutes ago (1|0)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Channel_Capacity_with_Power-_and_Bandwidth-Limited_Regimes.png Are these values corresponding to absolute widths, regardless of the carrier frequency?


----------------------------------------

I am totally lost on kB kb Mb MB.  I can interpret this chart once I am positive on these metrics.  I think he was suggesting we can use a much narrower band than I originally thought.  Narrow is good, selective, low distortion.

[Altoidnerd]

It's amazing to think that basically anyone in the world could have access to a virtual currency.

There are many issues, if it follows the blockchain system, confirmations will likely be awfully slow, depending upon the RF travel times, although I have read that FTL radio signals have been sent, the issue with them is they had no data.

Different RF signals could play different roles within the network. Longwave could basically be the pools and regional nodes, taking a fee, from shortwave 'miners'.

 

I think once we establish some core principles, like how everyone can access the blockchain and agree on its state within tolerance, we can do all sorts of things.  Would love to nail those down to serve as a proof of concept, even if they are later abandoned. Ground levels concepts are needed for agreement later.

Don't hesitate to break things down to pre-k level basics because this is like reinventing the wheel. We could distinguish important elements in the bitcoin network today  and decide how they map into a system run over EM transmissions. These elements needn't correspond 1-to-1 to some new system.

• There are lightweight users who transmit tx's only
    + Users tend to also enjoy notification of reception of a payment, but actually no action takes place on the receive side to receive a TX.  Receives are essentially "offline" unless you're afforded the information you've been paid - otherwise known as a receipt.

• There are full nodes who relay the txs

• There are miners

• They talk to their pool servers

• Not sure what else?

[Altoidnerd]

If you think about wireless telecommunication today, this is already possible over existing networks, but that's not really the big idea... that is merely an extension of the internet.  To go for a much greater leap forward, think passive receivers with limited transmit abilities as "wallets". Examining the function of each of the above players in the protocol and determining "minimum tolerable level of connectivity" for each would be nice.  

We can decide who holds what device and how much energy it needs to power transmissions, relays, or passive reception.  We could have people sending bitcoins with handhelds that draw little or no power, or are solar powered.  There are clever ways to transmit just a small amount of information (initiate a TX) with magnetic induction that are almost passive if not actually entirely so - they could be initiated with the amount of energy extracted from waving your hands...  Receivers can be completely passive, so syncing to the blockchain can be done with almost no energy as well (on the receive side - in principle).

Actually thinking things like this over for a night made me realize how efficient Bitcoin itself is by design, yet how inefficiently we are carrying out the underlying principle by using computers, monitors, etc.  This isn't a knock to what happened and how BTC developed online - it had to be that way.  But since bitcoin is a realization of the fact that wealth is only an account of what you have earned and spent - bits of information on a big list somewhere - bitcoin doesn't require the internet or computers at all to persist.  Bits need to flip when they need to - the internet is truly overkill.

[PinkPotatos]

cool idea guys

[kr105]

What about regulations of each country about radio transmissions?

[Altoidnerd]

What about regulations of each country about radio transmissions?

An extremely complex issue, however is actually fairly well defined by charts that look insane like this one



pdf will not display - this is a giant image: http://www.ntia.doc.gov/files/ntia/publications/2003-allochrt.pdf

[Altoidnerd]

What about regulations of each country about radio transmissions?

An extremely complex issue, however is actually fairly well defined by charts that look insane like this one



pdf will not display - this is a giant image: http://www.ntia.doc.gov/files/ntia/publications/2003-allochrt.pdf

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