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I can't imagine any benefits from satellites in blockchains unless everyone has access to broadcast their transactions which would seem to necessitate satellite

I can't imagine any benefits from satellites in blockchains unless everyone has access to broadcast their transactions which would seem to necessitate satellite uplink hardware for any node which I highly doubt will become affordable or common anytime soon and until it does, the nodes running sattalite uplinks would be in a position similar to mining pool operators which can MITM your transactions to manipulate for their malicious benefit. Also latency on satellites is atrocious.

mrb 9y ago
The sat link is downstream only. The benefit is obvious: you can run a full node with the cheapest lowest-bandwidth internet connection, while shifting the majority of your network traffic to the (free) sat link. You use your regular internet connection only for the occasional retransmissions, or transactions you emit, or blocks you mine.
- icebraining 9y ago
  And you don't even need an internet connection to push your transactions: http://gk2.sk/how-to-push-bitcoin-transactions-via-sms/ http://gk2.sk/how-to-push-bitcoin-transactions-via-sms/ (Not my blog, I just had the same idea on reading the article)
nadaviv 9y ago
Broadcasting transactions is easy and trustless: you can give it to anyone who has an internet connection (over radio, SMS, in-person, physical mail, pigeons...) and the worse they can do is not broadcast the transaction. If you send the transaction to multiple parties, you can reduce this risk without introducing any additional risk. It's also something that you don't do very often. Figuring out Bitcoin's best chain (PoW-wise longest) and remaining in consensus with the rest of the network is the hard part: it requires on-going communications on a reliable uncapped/high-capped internet connection, introduces trust, and adds the risk of fraud (someone feeding you with an alternative best chain that's not recognized by the rest of the network as such could execute double-spend attacks against you [0]). [0] Blockstream satellite is no different in this regard: Blockstream could feed incorrect data into their satellites. But as a farmer in India, I would feel more comfortable trusting a satellite signal from an internationally known company that many other people are also getting (and audit, and hopefully sound an alarm if something goes wrong) then trusting, say, some internet-connected device two villages away.
- nadaviv 9y ago
  Also, one could use the satellite data as an additional source of data, just as-if its another peer on the p2p network. In this case, this would strictly improve your security and protect against partitioning attacks with no downsides at all.

mrb 9y ago

The sat link is downstream only. The benefit is obvious: you can run a full node with the cheapest lowest-bandwidth internet connection, while shifting the majority of your network traffic to the (free) sat link. You use your regular internet connection only for the occasional retransmissions, or transactions you emit, or blocks you mine.

icebraining 9y ago
And you don't even need an internet connection to push your transactions: http://gk2.sk/how-to-push-bitcoin-transactions-via-sms/ http://gk2.sk/how-to-push-bitcoin-transactions-via-sms/ (Not my blog, I just had the same idea on reading the article)

nadaviv 9y ago

Broadcasting transactions is easy and trustless: you can give it to anyone who has an internet connection (over radio, SMS, in-person, physical mail, pigeons...) and the worse they can do is not broadcast the transaction. If you send the transaction to multiple parties, you can reduce this risk without introducing any additional risk. It's also something that you don't do very often. Figuring out Bitcoin's best chain (PoW-wise longest) and remaining in consensus with the rest of the network is the hard part: it requires on-going communications on a reliable uncapped/high-capped internet connection, introduces trust, and adds the risk of fraud (someone feeding you with an alternative best chain that's not recognized by the rest of the network as such could execute double-spend attacks against you [0]). [0] Blockstream satellite is no different in this regard: Blockstream could feed incorrect data into their satellites. But as a farmer in India, I would feel more comfortable trusting a satellite signal from an internationally known company that many other people are also getting (and audit, and hopefully sound an alarm if something goes wrong) then trusting, say, some internet-connected device two villages away.

nadaviv 9y ago
Also, one could use the satellite data as an additional source of data, just as-if its another peer on the p2p network. In this case, this would strictly improve your security and protect against partitioning attacks with no downsides at all.