Why do cryptocurrencies need internet to function?

[mobgit]

Hello Everybody,

Bought my first bitcoins about 2 months ago and never really had a reason to sign up and post here but I've found myself pondering cryptocurrencies more and more in the past couple weeks specifically the technical sides and was hoping some peeps on here could help me out and understand some things better.

1) Why do all cryptocurrencies need the internet to function. Why can't cellular networks be used at the user level to transmit the necessary data? Wouldn't this drive up adoption and interest in more rural areas where internet is not available?

2) This is pure curiosity but how much capital would one need if they wanted to create their own currency not tied to any other. For e.g. the Litecoin founder was an ex Googler and had the skills to do everything probably himself. Am I correct he used Bitcoin open source software and adjusted it?

How many man hours would be needed to be spent to do what the Litecoin team did and create a totally customized secure currency? I say man hours because the hourly rate of the developers could vary depending who you used so wouldn't be useful to estimate cost in terms of capital.

3) Do you agree that crippling regulation will not be introduced for Bitcoin? The US $ competes with so many other currencies already and commodities and to many governments Bitcoin is just another currency. As long as AML procedures are applied at the exchange level or other currency to Bitcoin conversion points, what reason could authorities have to regulate it out of existence or ban it all together?

Thanks and I hope that the more experienced members of this forum do not ignore this newbie section entirely.

[minifrij]

1. It just needs internet by the way it is programmed. The blockchain is made to be on the internet and the client needs internet to connect to another.

2. I shouldn't think you would need any. All you really need to make it is knowledge on how Bitcoin works and knowledge in programming.

3. Bitcoin will not be shut down because it is peer to peer. This means that if there were only two other people with Bitcoin installed on their PC and had it running, Bitcoin would send data between those two and keep the network alive. Sort of like Bittorrent.

[tondaS]

2) This is pure curiosity but how much capital would one need if they wanted to create their own currency not tied to any other. For e.g. the Litecoin founder was an ex Googler and had the skills to do everything probably himself. Am I correct he used Bitcoin open source software and adjusted it?

How many man hours would be needed to be spent to do what the Litecoin team did and create a totally customized secure currency? I say man hours because the hourly rate of the developers could vary depending who you used so wouldn't be useful to estimate cost in terms of capital.

The source code is open, so for new alternative cryptocurrency you need between 1 and 100 hours, depending on your experiece with the source code already and number of changes. And starting capital ? 0, just your time

[tondaS]

For e.g. the Litecoin founder was an ex Googler and had the skills to do everything probably himself. Am I correct he used Bitcoin open source software and adjusted it?

Yes, you are correct ,the bitcoin open source was used and the changes are: Scrypt hashing instead of SHA256D hashing, 2.5 minutes between block instead of 10 minutes, 4x higher max coins, address starting with Lxxxx instead 1xxxxxx

Thats it. The Scrypt hashing took most time

[mobgit]

Thank you guys for your input.

In your opinion which of the altcoins have properties that make them more suited for day to day transactions? Is there a currency that allows <1 min between each block? Why were both coins developed in such a way where time between each block is greater than 30-60 secs?

If no currency exists that allows this, why not? Is there a technical limitation?