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Bitchat – A decentralized messaging app that works over Bluetooth mesh networks

github.com

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Re: Bitchat – A decentralized messaging app that works over Bluetooth mesh networks

#231

Post by altruios »

repeekad wrote: post #218
Aurornis wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Senders pay a small fee to send a message. • Relaying devices earn a micro-payment (could be tokens, sats, etc.) for carrying the message one hop further. The Helium Network tried something like this, but with a fixed infrastructure: People were incentivized to run Helium network nodes and could earn micropayments for running nodes and handling traffic. It revealed a lot of problems with structures like this, such…

> I think it would be interesting if someone could invent a stable coin cryptocurrency with low overhead Like the US dollar and Postgres? For like $200 anyone can start a business entity in the US with a tax ID and a bank, I’m still yet to understand how crypto is better other than for circumventing regulators

Most crypto, no.

The one to look at for that is Monero: the closest thing to private(anonymous) digital cash that I've found (so far).

Re: Bitchat – A decentralized messaging app that works over Bluetooth mesh networks

#233

Post by toast0 »

jappgar wrote: post #195
toast0 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've still got dead zones near me. If I were cycling with someone, and we wanted to chat on headsets, there's at least a few places I might ride where we'd hit dead air. If we're on different networks, then we both need coverage to communicate with cellular. Might be more reasonable to use higher bandwidth, lower latency codecs over bluetooth as well?

For this use case, old fashioned radio is a lot more reliable.

Quite likely, but then you need to carry that radio. And probably still carry a phone in case you split up and want to communicate.

Re: Bitchat – A decentralized messaging app that works over Bluetooth mesh networks

#234

Post by pizzafeelsright »

deweller wrote: post #223
repeekad wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think it would be interesting if someone could invent a stable coin cryptocurrency with low overhead Like the US dollar and Postgres? For like $200 anyone can start a business entity in the US with a tax ID and a bank, I’m still yet to understand how crypto is better other than for circumventing regulators

Cryptocurrency transfers are irreversible, publicly verifiable and pseudonymous. For a privacy focused application, these attributes make crypto a better choice than USD and the traditional banking system.

How?

Irreversible is bad because mistakes happen. I lost ~$1,000 in a bad transfer because of a typo.

Publicly verifiable -- not good because I don't want the public knowing what I buy.

Pseudonymous is the worst of both. Is it or is it not me? them?

I am thinking digital cash using pub keys on a network run from space on something like starlink sats.

Re: Bitchat – A decentralized messaging app that works over Bluetooth mesh networks

#236

Post by bee_rider »

moneywaters wrote: post #96

I’ve been toying with a concept inspired by Apple’s Find My network: Imagine a decentralized, delay-tolerant messaging system where messages hop device-to-device (e.g., via Bluetooth, UWB, Wi-Fi Direct), similar to how “Find My” relays location via nearby iPhones. Now add a twist: • Senders pay a small fee to send a message. • Relaying devices earn a micro-payment (could be tokens, sats, etc.) for carrying the messag…

How would the payment work?

You pass along a message, and get a token in return. Then, some options:

1) the message never makes it through

2) the message makes it through, via your path

3) the message makes it through, but via some other path, and yours is really a dead end

Also, how would you handle the case where multiple peers all get the message and send it through the same bottleneck node? I guess you’d want to have some incentive to widen bottlenecks, so that no nodes become important…

Re: Bitchat – A decentralized messaging app that works over Bluetooth mesh networks

#237

Post by teiferer »

huslage wrote: post #224
moneywaters wrote: post #96

I’ve been toying with a concept inspired by Apple’s Find My network: Imagine a decentralized, delay-tolerant messaging system where messages hop device-to-device (e.g., via Bluetooth, UWB, Wi-Fi Direct), similar to how “Find My” relays location via nearby iPhones. Now add a twist: • Senders pay a small fee to send a message. • Relaying devices earn a micro-payment (could be tokens, sats, etc.) for carrying the messag…

Why does anyone need a cash incentive to pass a message silently? There is literally zero marginal cost to them to do this. Why does everything have to cost/make money?

It costs energy.

It's very little energy, but it's literally non-zero, so definitely not "literally zero marginal cost".

Why would the user care if it's negligible? Because very-small-but-nonzero things scale very differently from actual zero things. If the price of injecting something is zero or almost zero, then this gets quickly abused and suddenly your battery drains like crazy because somebody decided that this is an excellent new vector to serve spam. So everybody will deinstall/deactivate this.

And that's why we can't have nice things.

Re: Bitchat – A decentralized messaging app that works over Bluetooth mesh networks

#238

Post by teiferer »

rlt wrote: post #122
jakeinsdca wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

imagine building a lightning client into this.

Lightning network depends on… the internet… so if both clients are on the internet why not just send messages over that?

Privacy?

"Just encrypt things" might be your reply. TOR folks have been fighting an uphill battle for ages with that as their main weapon.

Re: Bitchat – A decentralized messaging app that works over Bluetooth mesh networks

#239

Post by webXL »

jakeinsdca wrote: post #112
yetihehe wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who would you pay for sending messages? That's your centralization point. Alternatively if you allow "starting balance", how would you prevent from making a lot of accounts for spam sending?

imagine building a lightning client into this.

eCash would be better, but someone needs to be connected to the mint.

Re: Bitchat – A decentralized messaging app that works over Bluetooth mesh networks

#240

Post by glitchc »

kosolam wrote: post #227
glitchc wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To make this work you need to be able to connect to the public blockchain, which of course requires internet access.

Absolutely, to deposit and withdraw. But relay can be done without the Internet.

To claim payment for services too. You've created a new problem that does nothing to solve the original problem.
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