Blockchains do not solve the "byzantine generals' problem" - Offline blockchains

[Bialke]

In 2022 more than 35 countrys were setting the internet offline - in a minimum of 187 cases. Regional and national.

Some people think and market Satoshi Nakamoto was solving the "byzantine generals' problem" by creating Bitcoin. But this is not true.

In a continental and global conflict (war, repression) it is possible to put a lot of people - billions - off the internet. And also natural desasters like solar flares can do harm. The solution of the "byzantine generals' problem" is not an electronic or internet solution.

But:

It is very interesting to see, that a lot of blockchain developers are working on offline blockchain solutions!

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[digaran]

You got it backwards though, first of all tell us what exactly is an offline blockchain? And how do you suppose we should have a currency in an offline blockchain, don't bother because "offline" blockchain (currency) has been around ever since of invention of banks. You could claim it's interesting to see decentralized offline banks, but that can't happen due to the nature of DDL, or decentralized distributed ledgers. Maybe I am the one getting all this wrong, right?
Thanks to cryptography, generals have no problem anymore.😉

[pooya87]

I'm not entirely sure you know what the Byzantine Generals problem is.
For starters it is a condition particularly defined in decentralized systems and for "distributed computing" which means if you centralize the system the Byzantine fault no longer applies to the system!

It is about reaching consensus between the "peers" that are all at the same level. Bitcoin has successfully solved that problem with its Proof of Work algorithm (not just the "blockchain").

So I'm not really sure what the points you included in your post (wars, natural disasters, internet cut off, etc.) have anything to do with Byzantine fault. Any catastrophe is a special situation and your centralized bank (even with the centralized "offline" blockchain) is still susceptible to these disasters. For example flood can hit the centralized servers where this centralized blockchain is stored wiping out all the money anybody stored there!
Not to mention that as @digaran pointed out centralized ledgers (without being called blockchain) existed forever!

[ABCbits]

In 2022 more than 35 countrys were setting the internet offline - in a minimum of 187 cases. Regional and national.

In a continental and global conflict (war, repression) it is possible to put a lot of people - billions - off the internet. And also natural desasters like solar flares can do harm. The solution of the "byzantine generals' problem" is not an electronic or internet solution.

It's not byzantine generals' problem, but rather problem about communication infrastructure. And node which was offline or disconnected from rest of Bitcoin network can verify block/TX created which created when the node went offline.

It is very interesting to see, that a lot of blockchain developers are working on offline blockchain solutions!

If offline blockchain only means lack of internet, theoretically you could use different medium to broadcast transaction or communicate with other node. An example would be Blockstream Satellite.

[philipma1957]

In 2022 more than 35 countrys were setting the internet offline - in a minimum of 187 cases. Regional and national.

Some people think and market Satoshi Nakamoto was solving the "byzantine generals' problem" by creating Bitcoin. But this is not true.

In a continental and global conflict (war, repression) it is possible to put a lot of people - billions - off the internet. And also natural desasters like solar flares can do harm. The solution of the "byzantine generals' problem" is not an electronic or internet solution.

But:

It is very interesting to see, that a lot of blockchain developers are working on offline blockchain solutions!

Back when I was a kid in the 60's there was a project called "Radio free Europe"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Free_Europe/Radio_Liberty.


It is still around look above. I would think that EFTbitcoin's idea of using a satellite for internet or blockstream could fall into this idea somewhat.

So the restrictive places in the world would still have some access to BTC and other coins.