Mining "without internet"

[henry_p]

Bitcoin without internet: (for context)
I am considering the synchronization of a node to be partially solved by the BlockStream satellite that broadcast blocks and transactions.  It is centralized, but certainly better than nothing.

It is possible to "broadcast transactions" via radio.  It's been done with HAM radio, and perhaps on other radio bands too.  It does requires someone to receive it and relay the transaction to the internet, but that is unavoidable.  More importantly, radio waves are regulated making it a legal challenge.

It would be easy to setup "base stations" that listen to [some frequencies] and relay any valid transaction that it receives to the internet.  As far as I know, there is no such active relay, though I believe it would be totally legal in most countries and, even where illegal, it would be very difficult to track/down such relay unless they advertise their location.

I have heard of the goTenna, which has some interesting tech for broadcasting transaction.  I don't see how that can be helpful for mining, but looking into it can certainly give some insight.

While far from perfectly reliable, but definitely a suitable backup, one could transmit transactions via SMS.  Now that I think of it, there are a bunch of free services to receive text messages on disposable/temporary phone numbers in most countries across the world.  They could be monitored and valid bitcoin transaction relayed to the Bitcoin network over the internet.  It would take a couple separate messages per transaction, but that could be done.

Solo mining:
To limit the bandwidth required, some scheme may be used to per-determine which transactions are to be included in a block at any time, e.g. relying on what BlockStream has broadcasted up to some time in the past.

For a solo miner, assuming the BlockStream satellite is operational, we only need to "somehow" broadcast at most a couple hundred bytes to a relay (connected to the internet) and that's it.  Given the blocktime, a solo miner can send a SMS for every block found.  Using radio waves is also a potential solution, though legally more complicated.

Pool mining:
For pool mining, as far as I know, the bandwidth required is way too great to use SMS.  I don't like the idea of using SMS in the first place anyway, but that excuses only applies to solo mining.

As far as I understand, shares are submitted to the pool very regularly, i.e. a great handful of times per minutes.  Could it make sense to send the few best shares per block and send that only after a block is found?  It seems to break any payout scheme that I know.

Mining farm can aggregate their mining so that they appear as a single worker to the pool, but that is far from enough.

Using radio-waves (to broadcast) is a legal challenge to start with, and there are a LOT more shares to transmit than there are blocks.  Even with the ability to have each farm send only a few hundreds or thousands bytes for every block, ALL farms would be broadcasting their "few shares" almost at the same time, i.e. when a block is found.

Mining without internet:
Mining cannot afford the propagation delay that transactions do.

The idea is to have a fallback communication network for mining in case of an internet outage.  But during an internet outage, a nearby relay is likely experiencing the same internet outage.

One or a few mining farm(s) going offline for a couple days is not that big of the deal, except for the operator(s).  A backup solution is certainly helpful to such miner, but not critical for the network as a whole.

After much solo reflection, for anything more wide-spread, it seems that such a backup network can only be useful if it actually handles most mining communication.  i.e. if it "can" handle the load but waits around until internet breaks, then we should expect to discover its fatal flaws when it gets under load.  I am mostly thinking about pooled mining.

I swear I din not intend this post to go that far, nor that deep.

That said, maybe BlockStream is even less ideal here and node synchronization has to be addressed just as well.

Summary:
How to enable mining farms and residential miners to keep mining during local, regional or global internet outages?

What communications channels can be used for communication?

How can the bandwidth required for pool mining be reduced?

As a final thought, it appears that a solution for offline mining without internet may well be a solution for sending and receiving transactions without internet.  I hope, however, that I made clear that mining is a different beast.

Do some mining farm and/or mining pool have any sort of private or backup communication channels for blank swans or in the event s..omething hits the fan?

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[menoiazei]

Bitcoin mining and transacting in general without the use of internet is an interesting subject
was reading somewhere that can do so using radio waves, would be interested on more info on this subject!

[bittraffic]

Bitcoin mining and transacting in general without the use of internet is an interesting subject
was reading somewhere that can do so using radio waves, would be interested on more info on this subject!

Somehow I can see how this could be an option in Kazakstan because the internet is being shut down in the country and Bitcoin mining was stopped because there is no internet which is what you are saying could be possible.  But it's just not going to convince a miner to go into. They'd rather be waiting for the chaos to be over so they could restart the farm again.

[NoorAdin]

if the internet shutdowns repeatedly occur then offline mining could be a viable option.

[NotFuzzyWarm]

Perhaps try reading up on how Bitcoin mining and other crypto mining in general works. Mining nodes MUST be able to communicate with each other in a timely fashion to be able to know if/when a node reports a block found, add the block to the chain and then have that confirmed before someone else is successful. What you are describing as 'offline mining' is no better than putting a note in a bottle, tossing it in the ocean and waiting for someone to pick it up, read it and then replying with another note in a bottle.

At least with DBS links there is no blocking possible by a gov simply pulling the plug although latency will certainly be an issue resulting in any blocks you find will end up being stale and be orphaned.

[henry_p]

What you are describing as 'offline mining' is no better than putting a note in a bottle, tossing it in the ocean and waiting for someone to pick it up, read it and then replying with another note in a bottle.

At least with DBS links there is no blocking possible by a gov simply pulling the plug although latency will certainly be an issue.

I do understand that mining requires node to communicate.  I am talking about communication without internet, not "absence" of a communication link.  I used the word "offline" at the end referring specifically to internet being down, though I understand the confusion and edited that part.  What a goTenna can indeed be compared to "tossing [transactions] in the ocean", but that isn't the topic.

I doubt that governments can't shut that down DBS (Direct Broadcast Satellite).  That would mean that they also can't force BlockStream to stop feeding data to the satellite.  And being centralized, BlockStream itself can decide to stop broadcasting.  But as I said, it is indeed a very good tool that can provide for the inbound part of the communication.

I believe that the operator of a big mining farm would happily use communication channels with a few seconds latency over being completely disconnected and have their hardware sitting idle.

A miner (especially a solo miner) does NOT NEED low latency.  In fact, Bitcoin and Proof-of-Work are DESIGNED for high latency and low throughput.  Lower latency if is financially preferable for miners and reduce the likelihood of stale blocks, but is in no way a requirement for the network to be healthy and fully operational.


Does anyone know if the BlockStream (or any) satellite can receive blocks or transactions? (other than the company itself, of course)

[Iq45]

Yes, mining will continue if the internet goes off. But if you do not have internet then your miner will not be able to communicate to the network and submit the Proof of Work hence it will create a fork in the network.

[Artemis3]

You should take a look into point to point microwave wireless, such as those Ubiquity (2.4ghz/5ghz) antennas.

A bit more DIY could be using Wifi with unidirectional antennas, but they need to be pointed to each other. They have done 382 km!

Thing is those goTennas are way too slow (stay away from the locha scam). That sat link you mention is useless, unless its a proper sat link with bi directional data as some miners use (ie, in Africa, in the "middle of nowhere" but next to a hydro plant...). SMS? Nope

[nullama]

You need to have a reasonable connection, otherwise you'll end up with stale blocks

[mikeywith]

You should take a look into point to point microwave wireless, such as those Ubiquity (2.4ghz/5ghz) antennas.
A bit more DIY could be using Wifi with unidirectional antennas, but they need to be pointed to each other. They have done 382 km!

Line of sight is everything, good luck getting anything close to that range if you won't be cherry-picking your two points, the nature of earth is just "not so flat", we did manage to get connections close to 80km with Ubiquity but one of the antennas was placed on top of a very, very tall tower.


OP I mined for 2-3 years without internet on site, but the farm was connected to the internet via a P2P setup, latency wasn't that bad and I hardly got any rejected/stale shares, your idea should work " at least in theory".

See Blockstream satellite ground stations are connected to the internet, you buy your own base station/dish and you connect to one of the satellites and those satellites keep your node synced with Blockstream ground stations that "are connected to the internet".


What you want to do here is actually have your own satellite ground station and not just a base station, and then once you hit a block, you want to transmit that to the satellites in space for them to re-transmit that block back to the earth so the block can be broadcasted to every mining node for them to stop working on that block.

Latency aside, this isn't a DIY project that can be done with no funding, if you can rent a satellite space and build/buy an uplink transmitter that can transmit blocks to the space -- then half the problem is solved.

Does anyone know if the BlockStream (or any) satellite can receive blocks or transactions? (other than the company itself, of course)

BlockStream satellites do receive blocks from their own ground stations, you can't send them your blocks even if you had the means to do it.

[nullama]

Well...

If you want to mine with weird technology, might as well go with the weirdest "official" one...

Transmit your packages with pigeons...



IP over Avian Carriers is a thing, more details available here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_over_Avian_Carriers

[Alexeymalutin]

Hmmm interesting consept.

Better don't get crazy, just use SkyLink

[NotATether]

It's an interesting problem, let me throw my two sats here for some practical addressing to these problems (that means no IPoAC or Skylink, sorry guys )

In the case of radio, you could just convert the transaction bytes to morse and broadcast an (english or other languge) START TRANSACTION and END TRANSACTION codes, but its possible for some of the waves to get lost or distorted - it is basically an old-fasioned form of UDP.

So there would have to be checksums around the morse code to prevvent any of the bytes from being lost or corrupted. Not like a few bytes at the end, but redundant data carried around other packets, probably XOR'd together. Or like how QR codes do it.

SMS doesn't have this problem obviously, but it would have to be sent from a specific sender for it to be trusted.

Otherwise, any random bloke can submit a garbled or fake transaction.

Being a structure of bytes also, blocks can be transmitted in much the same way as transactions, only much larger.

[ottokoester]

What you are describing as 'offline mining' is no better than putting a note in a bottle, tossing it in the ocean and waiting for someone to pick it up, read it and then replying with another note in a bottle.

At least with DBS links there is no blocking possible by a gov simply pulling the plug although latency will certainly be an issue.

I do understand that mining requires node to communicate.  I am talking about communication without internet, not "absence" of a communication link.  I used the word "offline" at the end referring specifically to internet being down, though I understand the confusion and edited that part.  What a goTenna can indeed be compared to "tossing [transactions] in the ocean", but that isn't the topic.

I doubt that governments can't shut that down DBS (Direct Broadcast Satellite).  That would mean that they also can't force BlockStream to stop feeding data to the satellite.  And being centralized, BlockStream itself can decide to stop broadcasting.  But as I said, it is indeed a very good tool that can provide for the inbound part of the communication.

I believe that the operator of a big mining farm would happily use communication channels with a few seconds latency over being completely disconnected and have their hardware sitting idle.

A miner (especially a solo miner) does NOT NEED low latency.  In fact, Bitcoin and Proof-of-Work are DESIGNED for high latency and low throughput.  Lower latency if is financially preferable for miners and reduce the likelihood of stale blocks, but is in no way a requirement for the network to be healthy and fully operational


Does anyone know if the BlockStream (or any) satellite can receive blocks or transactions? (other than the company itself, of course)

"but is in no way a requirement for the network to be healthy and fully operational" Yes it's required, because as you know... and said... you will be in a "blackhole" of stale blocks

Blockstream was not developed for Mining Purpose, it is core-lightning Network solution... since beginn when Adam tried to push the idea, many people was not accepting because most people that time was looking for mining solution... well Peter and some other crypto guys from many places, like from Japan, Holland and Australia, they've started to show how it was possible to run the "lightningnetwork/ppa" ... I remembered ho Pi was very nice for that and how we could register all transactions... but the main purpose was to open a registration channel or a second backup line that could work as a "Liquid" side channel to guarantee the stable life of the $BTC ... specifically when it was necessary to confirm the transactions reducing delays and stopping the unconfirmated transfer of bitcoins... with the first real Huge Pump around 2017-2018 the things started to gain more attention and many exchanges started to adopt the Lightning Network. This process (for me) saves the Life of $BTC, but this is another discussion about forks whatever... focus on your issue... what you are trying to follow... as a Miner is (almost) completely insane... also Adam offers this service as a real Business Class for mining, called as "Blockstream Mining" ... but I'm completely sure that it's just another way to use a "middle central idea" to produce pow coins, exactly, as is produced from Asia Miners like Antminer or from all chinese "controlled" companies like  Viabtc Technology Limited... well if you want to mine, there is no other better way like to be fast and to have power... it is that... you need to have a real fast stable connection, really connected many nodes, 100% accurated and of course with power... I'm meaning hashrate a real decent hashrate... 

[PokestarFan]

Well...

If you want to mine with weird technology, might as well go with the weirdest "official" one...

Transmit your packages with pigeons...

https://i.imgur.com/t16cHbz.jpg

IP over Avian Carriers is a thing, more details available here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_over_Avian_Carriers

Problem with this is that even if you could find the solution then the latency will be bad enough that by the time your solution reaches another node there will already be a solved block.

[altefritzbitz]

It's an interesting problem, let me throw my two sats here for some practical addressing to these problems (that means no IPoAC or Skylink, sorry guys )

In the case of radio, you could just convert the transaction bytes to morse and broadcast an (english or other languge) START TRANSACTION and END TRANSACTION codes, but its possible for some of the waves to get lost or distorted - it is basically an old-fasioned form of UDP.

So there would have to be checksums around the morse code to prevvent any of the bytes from being lost or corrupted. Not like a few bytes at the end, but redundant data carried around other packets, probably XOR'd together. Or like how QR codes do it.

SMS doesn't have this problem obviously, but it would have to be sent from a specific sender for it to be trusted.

Otherwise, any random bloke can submit a garbled or fake transaction.

Being a structure of bytes also, blocks can be transmitted in much the same way as transactions, only much larger.

why would the sender have to be trusted? it's only a transaction. you could send the signed transaction data via text to anyone in the world who has an internet connection, all they would then have to do is broadcast from a node. there would be an incentive for people to set up anonymous nodes specifically for this purpose. you would just have to set up a node and provide a few mobile phone numbers for receiving transactions. you could also set up a virtual office to receive transaction data physically but that would be insane.

[angelrio]

This can help us. Interesting.

[Skot]

If you have SMS, you prolly have some cellular data too — why not just use that?

You could broadcast your blocks over Iridium SBD (LEO satellite). the (bare) modems cost about $120, the monthly line rental is like $15 and data is in the neighborhood of $1/KB. The good news is that Iridium has 100% global coverage at relatively low latency. This could also potentially be a use case for Iridium Certus 100, but I’m less familiar with the pricing there. groundcontrol.com / rock7.com is pretty friendly to diy users.

Sounds like a fun project!

[ImThour]

In my honest opinion, the whole point of Bitcoin is to be a decentralized payment network on Internet.
You making it "without internet" completely ruin the fundamentals of the project itself.

Maybe make your own cryptocurrency which works on satellite?

[Coinfarm ventures]

Why not just build a very tall pole and mount a cellular 4GLTE antenna on top of the pole?