Bitcoin: A Planet-to-Planet Electronic Cash System

[OpenEyes777]

Chang my mind.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin-wallet-hurtling-toward-international-003804528.html

[JoSilla]

I'm sure Elon Musk's imagined something of this nature when he named his worldwide internet satellite company Starlink.

[Ozero]

The blockchain node was delivered to the International Space Station, where it will work throughout the year. Why bring it to other planets? If humanity moves to other planets, it is unlikely that the money issue will be so acute there. Who knows, maybe something else will be appreciated there that we have in abundance here, for example, air or something else. And by that time, if the criptocurrency will exist, then it will probably change a lot. In my opinion, it's too early to think about it.

[Darker45]

Chang my mind.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin-wallet-hurtling-toward-international-003804528.html

I don't understand how this will specifically boost security in terms of cryptocurrency transactions. Sending a wallet outside the earth's stratosphere does not improve anything in my opinion. The transactions are still happening within the blockchain so it does not matter much where the wallet is being located. Yes, it is already beyond any country's jurisdiction, but is it not always the case in terms of blockchain transactions? I mean, does any specific country have any authority over what's happening within a virtual network? And yes, it is beyond reach of physical hacks. But is physical hack the real problem? For as long as it is connected online, it can still be susceptible to hackers even if the wallet is in outer space.

[thirdprize]

And who holds the private keys?

[Duzter]

For me it looks like a news which doesn't have anything true, because I don't see this to be a official statement or article out from the authority. Also NASA or other space research organizations won't involve into this activities until it gets a legal support. Right now I don't think governments have given such a level of legal rights to research with bitcoin nodes.

[odolvlobo]

The distance between the planets makes it impractical. The propagation time is more than ten minutes.

[chaoscoinz]

Chang my mind.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin-wallet-hurtling-toward-international-003804528.html

As far as I know, we are currently a single planet civilization, and will probably be that way until they're able to provide a successful campaign from Mars (closest known planet) leading back to Earth. We can easily travel to mars if we send people today, with an average time span of 6 months travel give or take. The problem relies on getting back however. There is no possible way to get home, and any travelers to Mars will most likely end up being permanent residents.
 So, Bitcoin and cryptocurrency is currently not interstellar or interplanetary in any way for that matter. It is planetary though but only available for those with access to the internet. SO still it's highly limited. It's god to remain optimistic. No harm in believing!

[JeromeTash]

Chang my mind.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin-wallet-hurtling-toward-international-003804528.html

Honestly this makes no sense at all.
Bitcoin hasn't even been massively adopted across the world but here we are getting excited about Planet to Planet electronic cash system 

Comeback and tell me this news when
- We have Enough nodes throughout Africa and Asia
- There are humans staying in other "Planets"

Folks, lets stop the stupid hypes and focus on reality.

[dothebeats]

Even if we could utilize light (photons) into something that could transfer data faster, the average time needed for data to be relayed between Mars and Earth would still take 3 minutes which, IMO is a crazy amount of time if for network propagation and relay of tx info if you ask me.

Suppose that we get to successfully colonize or settle in Mars, terraformed the planet to suit our human necessities for survival and basically replicated everything Earth has. Still, distance is an issue when we are sending data from Mars to Earth and vice-versa since empty space per se cannot be warped into something unless a huge body capable of warping space-time (gravity, in other terms) occupies that empty space (we'll stop there in the meantime.) Now, light remains to be the fastest object that travels through empty space, though photons can only carry much information in them--then again, each tx only carries a few bytes of data thanks to our bright developers, so there's that.

One solution might be to create a single stationary satellite in between the two planets, placing it in between Earth and Mars' orbits for it to not to be carried away by the Sun's gravity or any other heavenly body's gravity. Then again, you still have this constant problem of space dust and rocks hurling at speeds unimaginable to human metrics, some of which are traveling at thousands of kilometers per second. Also, the question of who will fund this satellite will come in to play as well knowing that no central body governs and oversees these kind of projects.

All in all, this isn't viable with today's technology. Focusing on current issues regarding the protocol and the network seems to be the most plausible thing to do first rather than aiming for the stars (or Mars) as our short-term goal.

[hatshepsut93]

Running a node on Earth's orbit is one thing, but planet-to-planet connection is entirely different. For starters, the lag would be so big that it would be impossible to have mining on both planets, so one of them will have to have 100% of the hashpower. Also, there's nothing that makes Bitcoin more or less suitable for interplanetary transactions than centralized payment processors - they would probably create a special type of accounts for them, to account for the delay in communication.

[kryptqnick]

Chang my mind.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin-wallet-hurtling-toward-international-003804528.html

Honestly this makes no sense at all.
Bitcoin hasn't even been massively adopted across the world but here we are getting excited about Planet to Planet electronic cash system 

Comeback and tell me this news when
- We have Enough nodes throughout Africa and Asia
- There are humans staying in other "Planets"

Folks, lets stop the stupid hypes and focus on reality.

Yep, that sounds fair. Those of us who spend a lot of time on this forum might be forgetting that the reality is different. We all, the Bitcoiners, are in an awful minority. To put it in numbers, the total amount of users or cryptocurrencies is most likely less than 1% of the population. This kind of unpopular money is not likely to become valuable on the interplanetary scale even if there were already colonies on some planets and people used money there and thought of choosing a common currency. For now, let's figure out Earth and make it at least 5% of users here, then we can think of other things.

[Ucy]

Interesting. It's probably expensive to lauch one of those . I guess a cheaper alternative would be to launch couple of test balloons with nodes into the atmosphere like Facebook project loon and let see how that goes. I guess we will need thousands of the balloons talking to each other as they revolve in circle above us.

[Artemis3]

Even if we could utilize light (photons) into something that could transfer data faster, the average time needed for data to be relayed between Mars and Earth would still take 3 minutes which, IMO is a crazy amount of time if for network propagation and relay of tx info if you ask me.

Suppose that we get to successfully colonize or settle in Mars, terraformed the planet to suit our human necessities for survival and basically replicated everything Earth has. Still, distance is an issue when we are sending data from Mars to Earth and vice-versa since empty space per se cannot be warped into something unless a huge body capable of warping space-time (gravity, in other terms) occupies that empty space (we'll stop there in the meantime.) Now, light remains to be the fastest object that travels through empty space, though photons can only carry much information in them--then again, each tx only carries a few bytes of data thanks to our bright developers, so there's that.

One solution might be to create a single stationary satellite in between the two planets, placing it in between Earth and Mars' orbits for it to not to be carried away by the Sun's gravity or any other heavenly body's gravity. Then again, you still have this constant problem of space dust and rocks hurling at speeds unimaginable to human metrics, some of which are traveling at thousands of kilometers per second. Also, the question of who will fund this satellite will come in to play as well knowing that no central body governs and oversees these kind of projects.

All in all, this isn't viable with today's technology. Focusing on current issues regarding the protocol and the network seems to be the most plausible thing to do first rather than aiming for the stars (or Mars) as our short-term goal.

Nope, as we already discussed elsewhere (Off topic?)...

The time it takes for light from the Sun to reach Earth is about 8 mins. I don't know how long it takes to reach Mars, but we can safely assume its a bit more.

Well the worst case scenario, you have to add BOTH the time light takes from mars to sun, and from sun to earth. When? When both planets are opposite to each other.

Yes there will be times when both planets are on the same side and communications will be faster. Of course we would need a relay somewhere when its actually opposite as the Sun would block (line of sight) communications entirely, so the communications round trip is actually even longer.

This is where the 40min ping figure comes from, a ping could literally take that long. Which is precisely why remote controlling things like probes all the way from Earth becomes tricky.

Of course as we also discussed, this makes Bitcoin unfeasible. Mars would have to have their own separate coin (blockchain) to be of any practical use there.

Interplanetary communications are not a joke, and Mars is quite close compared to, say, the asteroid belt or the "outer" giants and their "moons". That is (as i said) unless advancements with quantum entanglement make it feasible for instant communication across vast distances.

[blckhawk]

It's still too early to make assumptions. And a single node isn't significant either. It could be a potential success, if interplanetary missions and life-support has been achieved, but by then, it's more likely that bitcoin would be obsolete and be replaced by a more efficient and reliable framework. Though there are still chances that Bitcoin would remain by that time, the latter is much more likely to happen.

[BitHodler]

And who holds the private keys?

E.T.

In all seriousness, it's kinda sad that people are focusing on these nonsense topics while they could have spent their time productively focusing on how to make Bitcoin better and adoption by average joes not as convoluted.

People all want the price to pump but wait for others to do the work. 

[Dabs]

There was another article that talked about EarthCoin (Bitcoin) and MarsCoin, and the main issue is with the so called "Center of Hash".

Anything sent electronically to Mars from Earth or back would take between 4 minutes to 23 minutes, with an average of 12 minutes.

Anything more than 1 minute is too long for any hashpower or miner activity to take place that distance.

Mars would have it's own cryptocurrency. The Earth's moon is close enough that it can still just use bitcoin as it's only less than 2 seconds away.

[dothebeats]

There was another article that talked about EarthCoin (Bitcoin) and MarsCoin, and the main issue is with the so called "Center of Hash".

Anything sent electronically to Mars from Earth or back would take between 4 minutes to 23 minutes, with an average of 12 minutes.

Anything more than 1 minute is too long for any hashpower or miner activity to take place that distance.

Mars would have it's own cryptocurrency. The Earth's moon is close enough that it can still just use bitcoin as it's only less than 2 seconds away.

Yup, main issue would be latency, and we all know that with increased relay times between point A to point B on bitcoin, it already is a problem knowing that tx broadcast should be almost instantaneous for faster relay. There had been some talks about using moon as a form of a large internet satellite and researchers in MIT have already made some progress since. We could use that as a "Center of Hash" between Earth and Mars but knowing that the moon orbits the Earth as well, there will be times where relay would be obstructed and would take longer times than usual for the tx to come in.

[tsaroz]

Chang my mind.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin-wallet-hurtling-toward-international-003804528.html

The best thing about bitcoin is no one control it and everyone does.  This makes it a perfect value to trade between planets. Extra-terrestrial bodies are rich in untapped minerals and ores and they'd have a good trade for human things from earth.
But for that we'd need internet in the Mars and be available to every human settlements.
Bitcoin could even be the official currency of the mars.

[squatter]

Ah, so this is what Jeff Garzik has been up to lately:

Zheng said that having Jeff Garzik as SpaceChain’s Chief Technical Officer helped in that regard. Garzik was one of the early bitcoin core developers and he led SpaceChain’s effort to build out the software soon to be integrated with the ISS. He’s also been thinking about blockchain in space even before SpaceChain founded, said Zheng.

The distance between the planets makes it impractical. The propagation time is more than ten minutes.

It's obviously impractical for mining, but is that a problem for receiving blockchain state or broadcasting transactions? I would think these would just be delayed.