Wall Observer BTC/USD - Bitcoin price movement tracking & discussion

[death_wish]

Have you ever lived in a situation where downloading the entire Bitcoin blockchain from the Internet, and keeping up with blocks, would be cost-prohibitive in terms of bandwidth?  It is not a rare situation.  Not a corner case.  I think that the worldwide majority of people are probably in that situation.

Satellite TV dishes are ubiquitous.  Surprising and disturbing, but true.  They can be repurposed for this, with a few parts that fit into a poverty-level budget.  Now, at least, you can have the BYOB security of consensus-validating the blockchain yourself.  To make transactions, use your mobile data connection that has kbps speed, and costs money you can’t afford billed by the kilobyte.  Although it is not ideal from a decentralization viewpoint, it gets your foot in the door.

Still makes no sense?

You would still have to download the entire blockchain if you wanted it as the transmission is only for new blocks.

That was in version 1.  In version 2, they added the ability to obtain the whole blockchain from the satellite network.  You are factually wrong; your information is more than two years out of date.

Adam Back, Chris Cook
May 4, 2020

We are pleased to announce Blockstream Satellite 2.0 is now live, bringing a standards-based transmission protocol, more bandwidth, additional coverage areas, and the ability to sync a Bitcoin full node all the way from the genesis block up to today.

Although I don’t expect everyone to know about these obscure details, it is usually a good idea to look them up before opining.  Especially since I made a positive statement that you can download the entire blockchain from Blockstream Satellite.  If I said so, there is usually a reason.  I sometimes err; but before contradicting me, think twice.

[wrong arguments based on outdated information]

Yes, it makes no sense. As evidenced by the fact nobody is using it. There is no market for it because it's poorly conceived.

Does it change your opinion that the limitations you described were version 1 limitations, removed in version 2?  Technological developments often work that way, you know.

As for “nobody is using it”:  Source of information on usage stats, please.

raises hand.

my internet sucks majorly bad and it would take months, many months, to dl from genesis. my inet is so bad and the full blockchain stored locally so important i have it backed up so many ways (raidz2, raid5, portables drives, internal drives i rotate etc, all stored in many places) it borders on ridiculous.

 help me obi won musk, starlink is my only hope.

As implemented, it wouldn't help you. Sorry.

Please stop giving misinformation.

It will absolutely help vapourminer.  It is perfect for his use case, and the hardware cost is negligible.

https://www.blockstream.com/satellite/

[Richy_T]

By the time we go from “Bitcoin is for everyone”, to “Bitcoin is for well-off people in rich countries”, to “Bitcoin is only for people with high-quality urban/suburban Internet access”, there is not much “everyone” left.

TIL 6MB/hour is high-quality urban/suburban internet access.

[ChartBuddy]

Explanation

[Richy_T]

The true is here in the USA she is 100% innocent until proven guilty. So he is correct and you simply are ignoring the law of the land.

Personally I would like to see and hear the trial as I want to see if other weasels are going down due to this trial.

And yeah she is certainly 'guilty' other than by defined by USA law.

You know there was a trial, right?

[Richy_T]

Please stop giving misinformation.

It will absolutely help vapourminer.  It is perfect for his use case, and the hardware cost is negligible.

https://www.blockstream.com/satellite/

OK vapourminer, the challenge is on. Let us know how it goes, I'm genuinely interested.

death_wish, do they actually have the hardware available? The info page talks about preorder and when I go to the hardware they do have available, it doesn't mention if it supports v2 or not.

[vapourminer]

raises hand.

my internet sucks majorly bad and it would take months, many months, to dl from genesis. my inet is so bad and the full blockchain stored locally so important i have it backed up so many ways (raidz2, raid5, portables drives, internal drives i rotate etc, all stored in many places) it borders on ridiculous.

 help me obi won musk, starlink is my only hope.

is starlink the only "space" internet? I thought that blockstream did something for bitcoiners.

shoulda clarified. blockstream would suffice for my bitcoin needs and thats it. but i need starlink speeds to be able to download the bitcointalk forum now with JJG and DW sized post increasing as my regular crappy slow internet may not suffice soon.

[JayJuanGee]

All the weak hands that sold in the $20-25k range and are now sitting on the sidelines expecting more DOWNity, are gonna be really pissed when the price jumps quickly back up to the low $30ks and never comes back down again.

What are the odds of that particular scenario?  Surely less than 22.4367911%, no?

Even the April to June 2019 price run went up from $4.2k to $13,880 - Ie 3.5x, but ended up coming back down to $6.2k - even absent our March 2020 covid downity bonus... I am thinking that we had more positive macro circumstances back then and also just a wee bit less froth the the shitcoin space and also in the various leveraging catastrophes space... lot's of insolvent entities still seem to be faking their solvency... so maybe they won't have to sell any more of their BTC to cover, perhaps? perhaps?

Have you ever lived in a situation where downloading the entire Bitcoin blockchain from the Internet, and keeping up with blocks, would be cost-prohibitive in terms of bandwidth?  It is not a rare situation.  Not a corner case.  I think that the worldwide majority of people are probably in that situation.

Satellite TV dishes are ubiquitous.  Surprising and disturbing, but true.  They can be repurposed for this, with a few parts that fit into a poverty-level budget.  Now, at least, you can have the BYOB security of consensus-validating the blockchain yourself.  To make transactions, use your mobile data connection that has kbps speed, and costs money you can’t afford billed by the kilobyte.  Although it is not ideal from a decentralization viewpoint, it gets your foot in the door.

Still makes no sense?

You would still have to download the entire blockchain if you wanted it as the transmission is only for new blocks.

That was in version 1.  In version 2, they added the ability to obtain the whole blockchain from the satellite network.  You are factually wrong; your information is more than two years out of date.

Adam Back, Chris Cook
May 4, 2020

We are pleased to announce Blockstream Satellite 2.0 is now live, bringing a standards-based transmission protocol, more bandwidth, additional coverage areas, and the ability to sync a Bitcoin full node all the way from the genesis block up to today.

Although I don’t expect everyone to know about these obscure details, it is usually a good idea to look them up before opining.  Especially since I made a positive statement that you can download the entire blockchain from Blockstream Satellite.  If I said so, there is usually a reason.  I sometimes err; but before contradicting me, think twice.

[wrong arguments based on outdated information]

Yes, it makes no sense. As evidenced by the fact nobody is using it. There is no market for it because it's poorly conceived.

Does it change your opinion that the limitations you described were version 1 limitations, removed in version 2?  Technological developments often work that way, you know.

As for “nobody is using it”:  Source of information on usage stats, please.

raises hand.

my internet sucks majorly bad and it would take months, many months, to dl from genesis. my inet is so bad and the full blockchain stored locally so important i have it backed up so many ways (raidz2, raid5, portables drives, internal drives i rotate etc, all stored in many places) it borders on ridiculous.

 help me obi won musk, starlink is my only hope.

As implemented, it wouldn't help you. Sorry.

Please stop giving misinformation.

It will absolutely help vapourminer.  It is perfect for his use case, and the hardware cost is negligible.

https://www.blockstream.com/satellite/

I have to stand up for Richie_Teeeee here.

He is a recovering BIG blocker nutjob, and accordingly he has relapses from time to time, including but not limited recalling: 1) what year it is, 2) what epoch we are in, 3) what block chain (and/or thread) he participating in  4) CB is not his best friend in the whole world and/or 5) the sheer power of my lil precious.  

So, he just needs some kind of batslappening or something equivolent once in a wwwweeeee while and thereafter he will be as good as new (well kind of like refurbished, but still) for a few weeks.

raises hand.

my internet sucks majorly bad and it would take months, many months, to dl from genesis. my inet is so bad and the full blockchain stored locally so important i have it backed up so many ways (raidz2, raid5, portables drives, internal drives i rotate etc, all stored in many places) it borders on ridiculous.

 help me obi won musk, starlink is my only hope.

is starlink the only "space" internet? I thought that blockstream did something for bitcoiners.

shoulda clarified. blockstream would suffice for my bitcoin needs and thats it. but i need starlink speeds to be able to download the bitcointalk forum now with JJG and DW sized post increasing as my regular crappy slow internet may not suffice soon.

Don't be trying to ween yours truly nor dat dere udder peep nedur!!!!!!  

 

That wuld be no way to be winnin friends in dees here parts.  if you know what is good for uie pooie.  And that's not no threat, nedur.

[death_wish]

Please stop giving misinformation.

It will absolutely help vapourminer.  It is perfect for his use case, and the hardware cost is negligible.

https://www.blockstream.com/satellite/

OK vapourminer, the challenge is on. Let us know how it goes, I'm genuinely interested.

death_wish, do they actually have the hardware available? The info page talks about preorder and when I go to the hardware they do have available, it doesn't mention if it supports v2 or not.

I don’t know.  In the worst case, it is not necessary to buy their kits.  The system is designed with standard components.  The kits are a convenience.  It is intended that if necessary, poor people in poor countries can scratch things together on the cheap.

DIY (info about kits on the same page):
https://blockstream.github.io/satellite/doc/hardware.html#diy-hardware-requirements

Important link:
https://github.com/Blockstream/satellite

I don’t claim expertise on the satellite system.  If anyone needs setup help, I recall having seen some threads in Development & Technology.  A quick search finds only this—full of WO regulars, not updated in a few years.  (What happened to V8s?)
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2091860.0
There may be other old threads; or a new one could be started in Development & Technology or Bitcoin Technical Support.


I should correct or clarify two things I said earlier:

It is not purely an altruistic loss-leader for BTC adoption.  Blockstream also offers some paid services over the satellite network.  (Payable only via Lightning, in BTC.)  The service to download the blockchain is free; and they have no way to charge for it, because it is broadcast.  You can also broadcast your own messages over the satellites, for a fee.  I have no idea how much money they do or don’t make from these services.

My question about usage stats was inadvertently a trick question.  Of course, there can be no reliable usage stats:  The system is the most anonymous possible way to obtain the Bitcoin blockchain.  Although Blockstream themselves surely must have stats on how many kits they have sold, there does not exist any way to track who uses it with DIY hardware.  It is a way to obtain the blockchain even more anonymously than through Tor.


Additional information:

I see that they now offer download of the Bitcoin source code via satellite.  No Internet required to get the source!  LOL.  Craight Wright must love that.

They keep improving the satellite service, adding things.  Those here who run Lightning nodes may be interested in the Lightning Network gossip snapshots.

Needless to say, over the years, Blockstream Satellite has seen plenty of FUD.  Much of it from the usual suspects.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=trust;u=494856

ill say it here...BITCOIN CASH IS THE REAL BITCOIN

The Wall Observer, 2017:

LOLS, ITS A SCAM
the blockstream satellite are lies, please if you have never researched satellites, then do it, and be surprised and then you will see the scam...
the long con from blockstream to drain funds from the network for personal gain.

I know something about the subject. I don't see what scam do you refer to. PLease enlighten us.

if you have never researched satellites, then do it...while your at it, start looking at n  tesla,his tech, his patents and who stole em 

I have a Bachelor's degree in Telecommunications where we covered satellite technology as well as a Master's in IT. I have worked on military satellite systems. I see no scam in what they are doing. Seems pretty straightforward to me.

[ChartBuddy]

Explanation

[death_wish]

shoulda clarified. blockstream would suffice for my bitcoin needs and thats it. but i need starlink speeds to be able to download the bitcointalk forum now with JJG and DW sized post increasing as my regular crappy slow internet may not suffice soon.

I am not a bigblocker, but I am a biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiig poster.

I have to stand up for Richie_Teeeee here.

He is a recovering BIG blocker nutjob, and accordingly he has relapses from time to time, including but not limited recalling: 1) what year it is, 2) what epoch we are in, 3) what block chain (and/or thread) he participating in  4) CB is not his best friend in the whole world and/or 5) the sheer power of my lil precious.  

So, he just needs some kind of batslappening or something equivolent once in a wwwweeeee while and thereafter he will be as good as new (well kind of like refurbished, but still) for a few weeks.

Game theory AI here, modified tit-for-tat.  Batslapping seems uncalled for.  He’s been civil to me, and not outrageously horrible in other ways; therefore, I prefer rational discourse.  I win better that way By taking the high road, everyone benefits.

[aesma]

I like the videos of that guy, most aren't about crypto, but this one is : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJElqtqgC5c

At the end some inconvenient truth about BTC (no BTC bashing).

[ChartBuddy]

Explanation

[Richy_T]

I should correct or clarify two things I said earlier:

It is not purely an altruistic loss-leader for BTC adoption.  Blockstream also offers some paid services over the satellite network.  (Payable only via Lightning, in BTC.)  The service to download the blockchain is free; and they have no way to charge for it, because it is broadcast.  You can also broadcast your own messages over the satellites, for a fee.  I have no idea how much money they do or don’t make from these services.

My question about usage stats was inadvertently a trick question.  Of course, there can be no reliable usage stats:  The system is the most anonymous possible way to obtain the Bitcoin blockchain.  Although Blockstream themselves surely must have stats on how many kits they have sold, there does not exist any way to track who uses it with DIY hardware.  It is a way to obtain the blockchain even more anonymously than through Tor.

The file option is actually interesting to me. The ability to broadcast data over a wide area for effectively a low one-off fee could have interesting use cases, particularly if the size of the satellite dish required could be minimized. Of course, that's not really a Bitcoin thing. It doesn't appear to be a source of income for them though. They have an info page and it looks like they're currently averaging 1-2 messages a day and I bet most of those are of the test message type. https://www.blockstream.com/satellite-queue/

I see that they now offer download of the Bitcoin source code via satellite.  No Internet required to get the source!  LOL.  Craight Wright must love that.

Presumably a "just for fun" proof of concept type thing but fair enough.

As to not hearing about v2 and not being able to tell how many users... Well, it's not exactly all over the news and one would assume Blockstream would be crowing about it if it was a roaring success.

Unfortunately, it's a bit tricky digging the info out of their site so I'm not sure what the bandwidth looks like. They say 25x what it was for v1 but that was only pushing 6MB/hour. I'm sure it wasn't saturated (unlike Bitcoin) but it seems likely that grabbing the full blockchain would take a while. Vapourminer might be better off visiting his local library. It definitely sounds like it isn't as completely useless as v1 but it's not clear by how much.

[vapourminer]

It will absolutely help vapourminer.  It is perfect for his use case, and the hardware cost is negligible.

https://www.blockstream.com/satellite/

OK vapourminer, the challenge is on. Let us know how it goes, I'm genuinely interested.

DIY (info about kits on the same page):
https://blockstream.github.io/satellite/doc/hardware.html#diy-hardware-requirements

Important link:
https://github.com/Blockstream/satellite

uh, you guys do know im lazy af, right?

ill get right on that after a nap. priority one.

hahahahahaha   jk

realistically i have always been interested in it. if i ever do give it a shot i will post it here for sure.

[ChartBuddy]

Explanation

[death_wish]

Blockstream Satellite coverage:
https://help.blockstream.com/hc/en-us/articles/900004174286-How-do-I-find-out-if-my-area-receives-Blockstream-Satellite-coverage-

Unfortunately, it's a bit tricky digging the info out of their site so I'm not sure what the bandwidth looks like. They say 25x what it was for v1 but that was only pushing 6MB/hour. I'm sure it wasn't saturated (unlike Bitcoin) but it seems likely that grabbing the full blockchain would take a while. Vapourminer might be better off visiting his local library. It definitely sounds like it isn't as completely useless as v1 but it's not clear by how much.

It’s not fast.  Best estimates I can find for IBD from Genesis to tip run about a month (see below).  The point is to make it feasible.

my internet sucks majorly bad and it would take months, many months, to dl from genesis. my inet is so bad and the full blockchain stored locally so important i have it backed up so many ways (raidz2, raid5, portables drives, internal drives i rotate etc, all stored in many places) it borders on ridiculous.

Saturating one’s downstream bandwidth (thus probably being unable to do anything else) for “many months” sounds totally infeasible for real-world use.  Note that in addition to the question of time to sync, the satellite takes the load off of an Internet connection that may be metered/expensive, and that may be needed for other things!  It doesn’t sound like “visiting the local library” to mooch hundreds of gigabytes of their bandwidth is much of an option here, either.

In the past, I’ve run on hardware that takes weeks or a month to validate/index/reindex (CPU and IOPs bottlenecks).  So...

Your estimates of bandwidth are not very useful.  The v2 satellite system uses special encoding to compress the blockchain transmission.  This is reversible, so you wind up with the same data that you would get from the Internet.  Here is a highly informative post from Greg Maxwell (nullc) about the encoding, dated 2020-05-04; I don’t know if anything has changed since then:
https://old.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/gdlk46/were_excited_to_announce_blockstream_satellite_20/fpif0ni/
^^^ The thread contains further interesting discussion, including some brief comparison of Blockstream Satellite to Starlink.

A quick non-Google web search found this blog post from 2021-10-03, also published in Bitcoin Magazine:

[...long description/instructions for setup, with photos and screenshots...]

Conclusion

After I get the blockchain synchronized, I plan on setting this up so that my other Bitcoin nodes will continue receiving blockchain data from my satellite node over my local network during an internet outage. But because I'm strictly downloading from satellite signal, this will take roughly a month or longer to get a full sync. That is why I think this is a good stopping point for this guide and I will follow up with shorter guides on useful things you can do with a satellite-connected receiving node.

Also published at: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/guides/how-to-run-a-bitcoin-node-from-satellite

The same author also has such things as “Bitcoin Home Mining Network Privacy”.  I have not reviewed.  It may be interesting to reach out to him for updates on how his satellite setup has worked out, in real-world usage.

Another guide I found (warning: on a retarded webhost that blocks Tor):
https://www.alexanderjsingleton.com/goldeneye-running-bitcoin-from-space-with-blockstream/

My searching/browsing just now turned up some other interesting stuff, about using Bitcoin totally off-grid:  Blockstream Satellite for receiving the blockchain as bulk data—mesh networks for anything that needs two-way communication.  Will not link, because I am getting way out of my depth.  I know some people who do mesh networks; perhaps I should take this as an opportunity to learn.

vapourminer:  I do know of some things about LoRaWAN, alternative sat systems for other purposes (not useful for receiving the Bitcoin blockchain), and other things that it seems you would probably find very useful.  Not an expert—could give pointers and DYOR leads.  Feel free to ping me if curious.

The file option is actually interesting to me. The ability to broadcast data over a wide area for effectively a low one-off fee could have interesting use cases, [...]

I observe that it is a way to broadcast a message to a completely untraceable recipient.  To send the message, your Internet connection could still be traced if Tor is broken, or whatever; but there are various specialized scenarios where message recipient anonymity is the top priority.  Compare dead-drops, or old-fashioned alt.anonymous.messages.

uh, you guys do know im lazy af, right?

ill get right on that after a nap. priority one.

hahahahahaha   jk

realistically i have always been interested in it. if i ever do give it a shot i will post it here for sure.

I do NOT want to ask any potentially private/revealing details about your circumstances.  But I have a feeling that someday, you may find this very handy.  Even as a backup for your multiple backups of the precious, precious blockchain.

Happy to help.

[goldkingcoiner]

Sorry if I am not understanding this, but the "teleports" still rely on the traditional ground internet to get the block data which they proceed to send to the satellites which proceed to send it everywhere on earth? Why can't we just use Elon Musks satellites to access the internet and basically do the same thing once the costs justify the means?

[ChartBuddy]

Explanation

[death_wish]

Sorry if I am not understanding this, but the "teleports" still rely on the traditional ground internet to get the block data which they proceed to send to the satellites which proceed to send it everywhere on earth? Why can't we just use Elon Musks satellites to access the internet and basically do the same thing once the costs justify the means?

The purpose here is to transmit the blockchain to people who lack sufficient Internet access.  (Or who want to receive the entire blockchain with total anonymity.)  As long as we don’t all suddenly start depending on Blockstream for this, Blockstream Satellite only increases the availability of Bitcoin.  It is strictly an improvement:  An addition to ground-based Internet, which is not all controlled by any one party, as well as off-grid communications such as mesh networks, etc., etc.

Incurring a centralized dependency on Elon Musk for anything is a bad idea.  Musk essentially boosted/launched the current wave of “Bitcoin uses too much energy” nonsense in 2021.  Musk wants to dox all Twitter users.  I do not trust the man.

I do not want his Internet.  I shall petition the CEO of Internet to ban this loser.

Twitter official onion: https://twitter3e4tixl4xyajtrzo62zg5vztmjuricljdp2c5kshju4avyoid.onion/elonmusk/status/1517215736606957573
Clearnet: https://nitter.net/elonmusk/status/1517215736606957573

[philipma1957]

OT...relevant mostly for those from 51 yo and older.

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/early/2022/06/22/bjsports-2021-105360

interesting study and a simple test.
basically, if an individual aged 51 and older can stand more than 10s on one leg, the probability of that person dying within 10 years is 5%, but if he/she can't, then the probability rises to about 30% (highly statistically significant, apparently).

easy enough to check

not sure what would happen if upon a bad test someone would start exercising and/or lose weight, etc.
basically, it is not clear if it is a fixable situation or not.

65 years old

60 second left leg
25 seconds right leg

I will practice and see if I can do 2 minutes on each