Can bitcoin survive without the Internet?

[Swordsoffreedom]

A better question would be can Bitcoin survive a regionalized internet.
Where each country has its own bubble
http://beta.slashdot.org/story/06/03/27/1347258/what-would-we-lose-from-a-regionalized-internet

[Magicman420]

No way it would survive.. Are you serious?? 50 percent of the population would be useless without the Internet  included me!

[ezimedia]

what about can the Internet survive without bitcoin in say 5-10 years from now..

[Honeypot]

NO.

[ShibaWow]

the thread is useless since shutting the internet down is impossible

any 1st world goverment doing this would face riots they could never imagine

the web would be restored fast, even if it happens in 1 country, how will they shut the rest?

[harlenadler]

Of course bitcoin can't survive without the internet -- but is it possible to shut down the internet?

[ixne]

It could survive, just send a usb with your transaction to every node through the mail.  Simple.

[galbros]

Without the internet bitcoin loses most of its advantages.  I guess people could make a shitton of paper wallets and maybe exchange those but since you couldn't verify the amounts I don't think even that would work.  After all, the coins are essentially on the blockchain, and if you can't access that, no dice.

[onezerobit]

What if someone (governments together with banks) would decide to shut down the Internet? Would bitcoin survive? Is it possible to transfer directly p2p somehow? Any thoughts? How strong this whole industry is really?

I have my doubts about any products' survival without the internet.

[twiifm]

What if someone (governments together with banks) would decide to shut down the Internet? Would bitcoin survive? Is it possible to transfer directly p2p somehow? Any thoughts? How strong this whole industry is really?

I have my doubts about any products' survival without the internet.

It might be inconvenient but the world existed for a long time before internet

[alh]

This is a key weakness for Bitcoin in my opinion. No Internet = No Bitcoin.

This is another reason it won't become "real" currency. I don't have to postulate the demise of the Internet, just it's lack of being truly widespread. How much of the worlds population has Internet access? Quite a bit less than will accept some form of physical currency I expect.

[onezerobit]

What if someone (governments together with banks) would decide to shut down the Internet? Would bitcoin survive? Is it possible to transfer directly p2p somehow? Any thoughts? How strong this whole industry is really?

I have my doubts about any products' survival without the internet.

It might be inconvenient but the world existed for a long time before internet

True true. but these days, if you look around, almost everyone is connected to the internet in one way or another. Like an addiction/epidemic.

[abacus]

Are we talking if it can "technically" survive?

Well, my thoughts are that at the end of the day Internet is just a medium to carry informations. It probably is (one of) the best, the fastest, the most widespread medium but it isn't the unique way to carry informations.

So, without Internet, bitcoin and many other things would be of course much different and probably with huge limitations but I can't see why they couldn't somehow continue to exist, if really needed.

[polynesia]

If governments do try to shut down the internet (highly unlikely), you always have the option of judicial review.
Plus it would wreak havoc with the rest of the economy.
What would happen to Google, Facebook et all?
So it is a highly unlikely scenario.

[efreeti]

Simplifying money transfer is the reason why bitcoin is superior to fiat. Without internet, that advantage cease to exist.

[tntdgcr]

so little these days could do without the internet as we know it.

[bigwig456]

What about directly communicating from cell phone to cell phone? transmitting bitcoins that way.

Cell phone to cell phone communication relied on internet infrastructure.

I don't think cell phone to cell phone communication relies on internet infrastructure. Some portion of the communication may depend on some form of network but the underlying protocols are dissimilar.

[Harley997]

It would be impossible for the government to shut down the internet. Most of what is on the internet is protected by the 1st amendment, therefore the internet is protected by the constitution. 

[Daniel91]

It would be impossible for the government to shut down the internet. Most of what is on the internet is protected by the 1st amendment, therefore the internet is protected by the constitution. 

Many human rights and freedom, protected by the 1st amendment, is already restricted by the government because of the war against terrorism.
If government decide that terrorists using Internet for criminal purposes and that only way to prevent this is shut down of Internet, I have no doubt that they will do this.

[AnswerQuestion]

It could survive, just send a usb with your transaction to every node through the mail.  Simple.

It would be very easy to double spend your coins doing this. The various nodes would also not have a way to communicate with each other.