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You can send a file up to 10Kb, and pay for byte sent.
It's cheap, coast looks to be $0.0035 for a 5Kb file.
The receiver can get the file, encrypted, without internet, using only a SDR tv card, amplifier and antenna, worldwide, in 10 minutes.
I see there large possible applications!!!
https://blockstream.com/satellite-queue/
https://github.com/Blockstream/satellite#hardware-requiremen...
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Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash and Ethereum (and probably other coins) all work over SMS. They are actually substrate-agnostic. You can technically deliver your transaction to a node with a pigeon, as long as the node accepts pigeons.
You need to process incoming transactions as well. It's inconvenient to receive the blockchain over carrier pigeons.
Hey look, another interesting idea for blockchain based propagation that will be niche and forgotten in a few months. Cool tech, but ultimately fucking useless.
It's still cool though If civilisation collapsed, as the power grid shut off, sys admins became farmers and ISPs collapsed, satellite ground stations go dark, interstate trade might still be possible through something like this. If it was able to receive messages and payment from unauthorised satellite dishes on the ground rather than through a REST API Being able to slow the collapse of civilisation, the idea is coo…
First and foremost: Bitcoin is completely dependent on the availability of lots of power (for proof-of-work calculations) and network connectivity (to distribute unmined transactions). Without both of these, it cannot operate. Adding satellite transmissions to the picture doesn't change this. In any sort of apocalyptic scenario like what you're imagining, cryptocurrency will be one of the first technologies to become unusable.
Additionally, all that's going on here is that a company is using several commercial satellites to transmit the blockchain, as well as some user-specified data. These satellites do not belong to Blockstream, and are not controlled directly by Blockstream's clients.
For those wondering about how much the lightning network is actually used, have a look at the stats [0]. Adoption is growing steadily. [0]: https://1ml.com/statistics
So, in other words, you can expect to transfer, roughly, $20 until you need to touch the blockchain again (in order to fund a channel), which means that sending ~$20 over LN is as expensive as doing it in a normal Bitcoin transaction.
LN doesn't scale because of this. People keep pretending that adding new nodes is a sign of success, when in fact adding new nodes to LN decreases performance -- because the smallest-capacity channel on a path determines how much can be sent through that path until you have to touch the blockchain. If two or more channels in a path need to be refilled, you've spent more on a LN transfer than you would have on a regular Bitcoin transaction (on-blockchain).
btw you can see the sent queue and send messages here https://blockstream.com/satellite-queue/
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It's still cool though If civilisation collapsed, as the power grid shut off, sys admins became farmers and ISPs collapsed, satellite ground stations go dark, interstate trade might still be possible through something like this. If it was able to receive messages and payment from unauthorised satellite dishes on the ground rather than through a REST API Being able to slow the collapse of civilisation, the idea is coo…
No, I think you've severely misunderstood what is going on here. First and foremost: Bitcoin is completely dependent on the availability of lots of power (for proof-of-work calculations) and network connectivity (to distribute unmined transactions). Without both of these, it cannot operate. Adding satellite transmissions to the picture doesn't change this. In any sort of apocalyptic scenario like what you're imaginin…
No, it's not. If miners' hash power reduces, Bitcoin dynamically adjusts. At worst, there will be a slowdown in block production if mining power precipitously drops until the adjustment takes place.
For those wondering about how much the lightning network is actually used, have a look at the stats [0]. Adoption is growing steadily. [0]: https://1ml.com/statistics
One of the problems with LN is that, in order to actually receive BTC (on the Bitcoin blockchain) that you can sell, you almost certainly need to go through multiple LN nodes. Due to this, the node in this path with the smallest capacity will determine the maximum amount you can transfer (before needing to touch the blockchain). From the stats we can see that " Average Channel Capacity " is 0.025 BTC/$91.77, and that…
There are usually many possible paths for a payment, so the payment limit isn't the minimum of any possible node along the route, but the set of all possible routes from one node to another. However, even this is scheduled to be removed, because LN will get Atomic Multi-Path Payments, which will enable a payment to traverse multiple routes and only succeed if all of the routes are successful.
"Refilling" of Lightning channels does not require new on-chain payments - it can be done directly on the Lightning network by routing payments through paths which require balances moving in one direction or another. You can route payments to yourself to reduce your balance in one path and fill it in another path.
Putting aside large payments for a moment, you're completely ignoring the potential use-cases for small payments. Currently you can make thousands of transactions on the Lightning Network, with fees averaging hundredths of a cent. This was possible on Bitcoin in the early days, but clearly cannot scale because it costs money to store and propagate information on a broadcast network. Lightning doesn't broadcast any transactions, and doesn't need to store old transactions. The use cases are left up to your imagination.
If you wish to learn more I recommend reading the BOLT specifications and subscribing to the lightning-dev mailing list.
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Buy data transmission for an obscure currency, use obscure lightning software to use the obscure currency to pay a company to transmit data to something you need to buy dedicated hardware for. Hapless optimism aside it’s hard to see what benign purpose this could possibly be used for. It’s sort of strange to bother with anything custom. Bitcoin signatures have a free, encrypted data channel within ECDSA signatures. Y…
This is to be used for areas that don't have access to reliable internet
So this seems useless for payment, but here is the real hidden interest: You can send a file up to 10Kb, and pay for byte sent. It's cheap, coast looks to be $0.0035 for a 5Kb file. The receiver can get the file, encrypted, without internet, using only a SDR tv card, amplifier and antenna, worldwide, in 10 minutes. I see there large possible applications!!! https://blockstream.com/satellite-queue/ https://github.com/…