Comment by mrb | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mrb | Hacker News Reader

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"if you've chosen to use an electronic cryptocurrency dependent on things like robust network and electrical infrastructure to function as your primary value store, you're going to have a bad time."

Apparently you are unaware of the tools to build offline transactions. Or of the ability to store bitcoins in your head (brain wallet).

Want to send bitcoins to someone without Internet? Just communicate to him/her the brain wallet passphrase (http://brainwallet.org). Or sign an offline transaction on your computer, and send him the raw TX (~300 bytes) printed on paper.

That's the beauty of Bitcoin! The sender still has options to transmit bitcoins despite being offline. Sure these mechanisms are clunky; communicating a brain wallet passphrase gives access to the whole amount associated to the private key, but I imagine in such dire situations (civil war, no internet) you are more concerned with abilities to for example send money to your son in another country, and you would trust him with the brain wallet. Also, nothing prevents you from splitting different amounts of bitcoins in different brain wallets (eg. 3 wallets containing 10, 50, and 250 BTC).

Also, a country under civil war typically destroys the value of their government currency via huge inflation. This is actually a perfect example to demonstrate why Bitcoin is superior to inflated fiat money!

Even with the printout in hand, how does the recipient actually make the coin "theirs"? Can't the sender thwart the transaction if they gain Internet access before the recipient is able to (by transferring the coin to a wallet that's ready to receive it right away)?

People can write bad checks or create fake money orders too. It holds as much value as the faith the recipient puts into it.

Which is why many places don't accept checks. In other words they don't consider it a valid currency.

Yea, bitcoin almost completely fails as a currency when the receiver doesn't have an internet connection.

Hell, some of us don't even accept the word checks! Let alone cheques which seem archaic to someone who doesn't ever use cash (last used about 6 months ago), regularly used... Never.

Many people still receive their pay in the form of a paper check. I personally pay my rent with a paper check, or at least have my bank send one out. Debit cards are certainly more popular and less risky than your personal check though.

Generally your employer isn't going anywhere, and if a paycheck bounces, you will see them the next day and raise the issue (also, they are legally bound to make good on that debt). I wouldn't take a one-time contract job and expect to get paid by check after handing over the work, any more than I would accept a check from a Craigslist user in exchange for an item (unless the check was allowed to clear prior to my side of the exchange occurring).

I would not say that a Bitcoin Check is the best way to facilitate immediate private party sales, but business to consumer sales/importation may be possible with a Bitcoin Check, as the supplier can clear the check before sending goods.

Additionally there could be satellite hotspots that could act as exchanges when landline or wireless networks are down. Bitcoin is probably not perfect, but could be useful for money transfer even in areas where the net isn't robust.

Yes.

With the printout of the raw TX, the recipient would just broadcast it on the p2p network (sendrawtransaction), that's how he would give himself the coins.

As to your other questions, it make no sense. In what situation would person A, offline in a state of civil war, absolutely need to send money to person B, and then would need to steal the coins back??

Your description seems to assume that A is offline and B is online. What happens when two bitcoin users are both offline for a prolonged period and A gains access first and moves his BTC to another wallet before B can submit the transaction? What mechanism beyond individual trust permits this to be an effective means of monetary transaction? Would you trust someone writing you a check in a war zone with no access to a bank to not later put in a stop payment on that check?

If the 2 parties are both offline, then yes the sender needs to be trusted to guarantee he won't attempt to steal the coin back.

I'm going to go with, no. Having easily stockpiled and manipulated hard currency (fiat or no) makes waaay more sense to me than some combination of words or what have you in my brain wallet.

I don't think there's been any real demonstration of the use of bitcoins for non-connected transactions--theory does not a practical application make.

Better off trading bottle caps or ring tabs.

Yes there are people building real world offline transactions. See the whole API: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Raw_Transactions Typically they use this API for offline cold storage wallets.

Any offline transaction which is spec'ed with JSON-RPC doesn't pass my apocalypse test.

I'm sorry dude, but if the bombs are flying and buildings burning, just admit it: Bitcoin is not a suitable currency.

> but if the bombs are flying and buildings burning

And state issued currency that could be worthless after a civil war or invasion would be better? Technically you could argue that bitcoin, being not issued by a government or controlling entity and possibly still in use in less volatile parts of the world is more likely to retain its value, as would a cold-storage BTC wallet hidden until afterwards when the internet is back.

However if you are thinking along the lines of of gold, silver and gems, then yes, bitcoin can't compare .

>However if you are thinking along the lines of of gold, silver and gems, then yes, bitcoin can't compare .

I would add the dollar to that list as well.

And yet somehow you think that the existing currency/banking network (which is still a network, and still travels over either telephone lines or the Internet, mind you) would somehow be immune to the apocalypse. Dream on.

Your best bet then is probably gold.

No offense, but you sound like someone who doesn't really understand the technology.

A TX record is signed, which proves that only I wrote it. It does not immediately have to become part of the "consensus ledger" i.e. blockchain. All I have to do is not spend the same money twice, and I can keep local records. Once the net comes back up, everyone can enter in their TX records manually and let the network figure out the rest. Any attempts to spend the same money twice would be prevented unless you somehow managed to spend from the same wallet in both fractions of the bitcoin network, which seems like it would be hard to pull off.

This doesn't deal with the other thing I mentioned, which is that the blockchains will fork without a global view of the network. This means you could spend btc gained before the fork in one segment and spend them again in another segment, and that if you got new btc in one segment, it would be invalid in all the other segments.

Also, as another has pointed out, this is ridiculously implausible when compared with other currency options.

Many invest money in btc that could have been invested in a hard commodity with emergency currency value like gold or silver. Gold and silver will continue to exist in a normal, usable fashion regardless of the state of online connectivity.

I was almost with you until the end. Gold/silver suffer a similar problem, unless you actually physically possess the metal then the certificates are of little value unless they are redeemable via some trusted 3rd party. In a shit hits the fan scenario, no such trust is likely to be present.

Yes, I agree. Those who hold gold through passthroughs, depositories, or similar mechanisms are not likely to fare well. It's only applicable for metals owned directly.

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