since bitcoin is supposedly only good for criminal deals
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what would be the best way to use it while in prison?
Is this a cash camp or a card camp (inmates not allowed to carry cash, and instead access to the canteen uses the proprietary card issued to the prisoners)? Because if you are asking if the prison operator itself wanted to use Bitcoin it could use bitcoins just as easily as dollars for its books ... especially if they already have the concept of debit cards / electronic accounts. It might be even easier than with dollars since they have a captive audience. Though the exchange rate volatility would be occasionally brutal on those when it dips, and an incredible morale booster when it rises.
I've seen those little paper wallets that are folded over and sealed, so that you can't see the private key.
So I'm concluding you are instead just asking for what might work for person-to-person payments (internal) without any electronics.
Bitcoin is an online digital currency. It can be used offline in some instances but it then requires some level of trust and comes in the form of Casascious physical bitcoins, or with paper wallets secured with a seal as you describe. But Bitcoin doesn't excel in that environment. It really needs at least one party in the transaction to have networked communications.
There was an IVR client that got started and then open sourced, but has stagnated. I'm not sure if that would be something that if developed would be of use:
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http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=43734.0But this is really pushing the round peg Bitcoin to fit into that square hole prison environment. Are cash, cigarettes, and IOUs insufficient?
