6 ms·

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.

Ihfhcub 8y ago
Uses a satellite to broadcast bitcoin. Nothing novel about the broadcast mechanism and it does not use "blockchain" pseudoscience scam to progagate anything. But bitcoin does have a real blockchain so that might be confusing. I admit this is confusing as 99.999999999999% of everything with "blockchain" in its name is a scam
- knocte 8y ago
  Granted, there have been a lot of scams in this sector. But to draw a parallel to the previous decades, it's like you were saying that because there were a lot of companies selling scammy ideas about their TCP/IP-based intranets, then the internet is a scam (i.e.: this article is about bitcoin, not about any other altcoin).
  - Ihfhcub 8y ago
    Bitcoin is a functional and innovative technology. Blockchain scams are all scams. Their claims are nonsensical and they can never define what this new definition of "blockchain" they commandeered off bitcoin is if you ask them. Just ask these snake oil salesmen what a blockchain is and you'll see a look of confusion appear on their face. The media is doing a great job of propagating this scam.
ENGNR 8y ago
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 cool even if not quite this specific implementation
- duskwuff 8y ago
  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 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.
  - rlpb 8y ago
    > Bitcoin is completely dependent on the availability of lots of power (for proof-of-work calculations) 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.
  - lowracle 8y ago
    It strikes me how uneducated people on hacker news still are about bitcoin. In 10 years, people didn't even take the time to inform themselves before posting wrong facts. >Bitcoin is completely dependent on the availability of lots of power Wrong. Bitcoin can work even if only one nuclear power station remains. The difficulty will adjust to the new hash rate, and as long as no single actor can control more of the nuclear power station than the sum of the miners, double spending isn't a problem. As for network connectivity in apocalyptic scenario, miners would only have to find a way to propagate data to the satellite, and users would only have to find a way to propagate data to miners. That is a lot less than what the current financial system would demand to function.
    - lawlessone 8y ago
      >the new hash rate would be 0
mikeash 8y ago
It’s not actually related to blockchains, is it? Aside from accepting cryptocurrency for their fees, anyway.
- wmf 8y ago
  They also broadcast the Bitcoin blockchain over satellite which makes some sense since the blockchain is public and all full nodes need copies of it. In theory this could reduce the cost of running a full node in places where bandwidth is very expensive. Of course in practice this a zeroth world problem.
  - tylersmith 8y ago
    It would not reduce the cost of running a full node in any way. It's just untrusted data from a satellite instead of from the standard Bitcoin p2p network.
    - wmf 8y ago
      You don't trust any of the data you get over the P2P network either. You verify it.
      - tylersmith 8y ago
        ...with a full node.
just_one_time_ 8y ago
It is worse, it is just propaganda from Blockstream. I don't know why HN continues to fall for Samson Mow's and Adam Back's nonsense. adam3us, you and your company are the absolute worst thing to ever to have happened to Bitcoin. Being the single greatest force push for a 1 mb block size, you almost single handedly caused the alt-coin boom as users scrambled to find a usable crypto-CURRENCY. You, Sir are and will be remembered as absolute scum and an enemy of digital peer-to-peer cash.

Ihfhcub 8y ago

Uses a satellite to broadcast bitcoin. Nothing novel about the broadcast mechanism and it does not use "blockchain" pseudoscience scam to progagate anything. But bitcoin does have a real blockchain so that might be confusing. I admit this is confusing as 99.999999999999% of everything with "blockchain" in its name is a scam

knocte 8y ago
Granted, there have been a lot of scams in this sector. But to draw a parallel to the previous decades, it's like you were saying that because there were a lot of companies selling scammy ideas about their TCP/IP-based intranets, then the internet is a scam (i.e.: this article is about bitcoin, not about any other altcoin).
- Ihfhcub 8y ago
  Bitcoin is a functional and innovative technology. Blockchain scams are all scams. Their claims are nonsensical and they can never define what this new definition of "blockchain" they commandeered off bitcoin is if you ask them. Just ask these snake oil salesmen what a blockchain is and you'll see a look of confusion appear on their face. The media is doing a great job of propagating this scam.

ENGNR 8y ago

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 cool even if not quite this specific implementation

duskwuff 8y ago
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 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.
- rlpb 8y ago
  > Bitcoin is completely dependent on the availability of lots of power (for proof-of-work calculations) 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.
- lowracle 8y ago
  It strikes me how uneducated people on hacker news still are about bitcoin. In 10 years, people didn't even take the time to inform themselves before posting wrong facts. >Bitcoin is completely dependent on the availability of lots of power Wrong. Bitcoin can work even if only one nuclear power station remains. The difficulty will adjust to the new hash rate, and as long as no single actor can control more of the nuclear power station than the sum of the miners, double spending isn't a problem. As for network connectivity in apocalyptic scenario, miners would only have to find a way to propagate data to the satellite, and users would only have to find a way to propagate data to miners. That is a lot less than what the current financial system would demand to function.
  - lawlessone 8y ago
    >the new hash rate would be 0

mikeash 8y ago

It’s not actually related to blockchains, is it? Aside from accepting cryptocurrency for their fees, anyway.

wmf 8y ago
They also broadcast the Bitcoin blockchain over satellite which makes some sense since the blockchain is public and all full nodes need copies of it. In theory this could reduce the cost of running a full node in places where bandwidth is very expensive. Of course in practice this a zeroth world problem.
- tylersmith 8y ago
  It would not reduce the cost of running a full node in any way. It's just untrusted data from a satellite instead of from the standard Bitcoin p2p network.
  - wmf 8y ago
    You don't trust any of the data you get over the P2P network either. You verify it.
    - tylersmith 8y ago
      ...with a full node.

just_one_time_ 8y ago

It is worse, it is just propaganda from Blockstream. I don't know why HN continues to fall for Samson Mow's and Adam Back's nonsense. adam3us, you and your company are the absolute worst thing to ever to have happened to Bitcoin. Being the single greatest force push for a 1 mb block size, you almost single handedly caused the alt-coin boom as users scrambled to find a usable crypto-CURRENCY. You, Sir are and will be remembered as absolute scum and an enemy of digital peer-to-peer cash.