Off grid Bitcoin

[slaman29]

It sounds really very interesting OP but my concern is not so much about how to learn it but how to access and get people to use it. I mean, in an emergency event, people will all be doing their best to stock food and maybe even use radio but for walkie talkies. I think the last thing people want to do is find a way to use Bitcoin. Not because I don't believe in it but the time is not yet right, priority is still too low unless Bitcoin is the main currency. Good work you are doing though!

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[kelz1]

There won't be a good solution for bitcoin itself, the transaction needs to be verified. It would be easier to create an offgrid altcoin that interacts with bitcoin or is at least easily swappable

[buwaytress]

Good initiative, OP. I have to say here that my only experience with radio in my home country was that it was pretty bad, because we lived in mountainous terrain (which actually is still very very poor with mobile reception, and spotty satellite internet, which we've only "enjoyed" in the past decade).

I think an important question would be what the cost would be for an initial set up? Say from scratch.

The other off-grid option I know of is Blockstream's satellite network and last I checked, the set up for that required over $100 in equipment (which is pretty decent). From my uneducated glance, this still seems better than ham radio.

[o_e_l_e_o]

I mean, in an emergency event, people will all be doing their best to stock food and maybe even use radio but for walkie talkies. I think the last thing people want to do is find a way to use Bitcoin.

If we look at what is happening in Venezuela right now, you are correct. 5 days without power and without clean water. They have militia guarding generators at hospitals. People are filling water bottles from sewage pipes because there is nothing else to drink. Rioting and looting. No one is interested in finding a way to use bitcoin, because what good would it do? There is no use having money (of any sort) when there is no food, water, fuel or supplies. If there is nothing to buy, money is useless.

[magneto]

I started a thread about the first ham radio transaction using the Lightning netwoork, and how that could help us to make Bitcoin transfers without access to the Internet. The recent loss of Internet access in much of Venezuela has brought this topic to the fore again, and it seems there are other solutions. One of which is txTenna -
https://github.com/MuleTools/txTenna

I rhink that this is something that we should be discussing in Bitcoin  Talk, and I would be interested in being a part of any project that may be started here.

Very interesting. Though the feasibility of this on a large scale is yet to be seen.

Also, given the fact that the internet is already be widely available, and the reliability of it will only increase even in remote regions, I doubt the need for offline bitcoin transactions will be that significant in the future. Especially when you consider the priorities that people will have without any electricity, it's basically a very unlikely SHTF scenario.

But certainly it can happen, like in Venezuela. If a feasible, large scale way of doing this on-chain can be found, then it'll certainly add to the functionality of the network.

Is this really a thing? It seems that we are learning backwards here.

We are not. We're simply trying to adapt bitcoin to as many possible scenarios as possible, so that its properties as a currency can be cemented and that its dependence on the internet, which may not be fully decentralised, can be reduced. That's furthering bitcoin's use, not going backwards.

[Pursuer]

I mean, in an emergency event, people will all be doing their best to stock food and maybe even use radio but for walkie talkies. I think the last thing people want to do is find a way to use Bitcoin.

If we look at what is happening in Venezuela right now, you are correct. 5 days without power and without clean water. They have militia guarding generators at hospitals. People are filling water bottles from sewage pipes because there is nothing else to drink. Rioting and looting. No one is interested in finding a way to use bitcoin, because what good would it do? There is no use having money (of any sort) when there is no food, water, fuel or supplies. If there is nothing to buy, money is useless.

these methods aren't only meant for disaster cases! these methods are partly meant for cases where there is some sort of censorship. for example the great firewall of China can start blocking anything bitcoin related! or even shut down the internet and cut off the connection to the world. in which case you can still use other ways to "connect to the grid" like what is being discussed here.

[o_e_l_e_o]

these methods aren't only meant for disaster cases! these methods are partly meant for cases where there is some sort of censorship.

Oh, absolutely. There are plenty of scenarios when accessing bitcoin without a direct connection to the internet would be useful - censorship is one, but also to avoid tracking or spying, in areas with poor infrastructure or patchy internet access, etc. I wasn't arguing that this wasn't a good thing, only that in complete catastrophe areas like we are seeing in Venezuela at the moment it's almost entirely irrelevant - nobody wants Bolivars, USD, or BTC. They want clean water and food.

I would like to think that we will hopefully reach a point in the not-too-distant future with worldwide unrestricted internet access via satellite, and so set-ups like TxTenna won't be needed.

[buwaytress]

these methods aren't only meant for disaster cases! these methods are partly meant for cases where there is some sort of censorship.

Oh, absolutely. There are plenty of scenarios when accessing bitcoin without a direct connection to the internet would be useful - censorship is one, but also to avoid tracking or spying, in areas with poor infrastructure or patchy internet access, etc. I wasn't arguing that this wasn't a good thing, only that in complete catastrophe areas like we are seeing in Venezuela at the moment it's almost entirely irrelevant - nobody wants Bolivars, USD, or BTC. They want clean water and food.

I would like to think that we will hopefully reach a point in the not-too-distant future with worldwide unrestricted internet access via satellite, and so set-ups like TxTenna won't be needed.

Yeah, and that's in reference to OP saying the current Venezuelan situation is bringing the discussion to the fore again. Again, I also am not dismissing TxTenna here but got to agree that using it (or using it for Bitcoin access anyway) is not a good use case in this type of situation. Emergency/crisis needs in fact, cash is better, if resorting to money but basic necessities are foremost.

An existing network, like I mentioned above, satellite, which is relatively cheap to build a setup for, should be enough. In case of censorship in fact, Radio signals can also be jammed quite easily and you can find radio jamming devices even sold cheaply online. I'm not sure satellite access (via microwave transmission) would be as easy to jam (I may be wrong of course).

[Ucy]

This is a great development. I have seen lots of new additions on github that i find hard  to believe are possible.
I wonder if the network companies can detect and censor such transactions when they are sent through text messeges.