[Crypto News] Blockstream’s 5th satellite means you can mine and trade Bitcoin anywhere without internet access

There are many “no-coiners” out there

Bitcoin denialists who have numerous reasons as to why Bitcoin is bad or dangerous as an investment. They say the risk is too high. One of the main arguments they use is “But what if the internet goes down or is blocked by the government? Then your Bitcoin is useless”. Well today we can announce that as from January 2019 anyone can mine or trade Bitcoin anywhere in the world (besides Greenland) without an internet connection because you can now use Blockstreams’ satellites.

source

This may not seem like much at first

And is not a new project as Blockstream had already put their other four satellites in space in last year, but with this last fifth element orbiting in space, the entire Asian quadrant of earth is now also included, thus completing full global coverage. So in effect this is a huge breakthrough and a giant leap for mankind toward the ideals of blockchain technology, namely to be private, decentralised and uncensorable by governments anywhere.

In the past

Whenever there was a need, like civil unrest or whatever, countries could and indeed have simply shut down their internet and communication services for a time. This may be to prevent activists from campaigning or communicating among themselves. As a result, with the network down, the blockchain was inaccessible for crypto mining or trading. But those days are over. Of course, you will need a little extra kit to link up to the satellites, but it’s easily obtainable.

“All a user requires to receive Blockstream Satellite broadcasts is a low-cost standard satellite dish. So if they are running a full node and mainly receiving payments, they don’t need an internet connection at all. To broadcast a transaction they could send it over an SMS bridge or a mesh network. Blockstream Satellite allows for users to get creative and build new solutions around the service.”

Samson Mow, the CSO of Blockstream

If you go to this Github link

The following recommendations are provided to initially set yourself up as a new world sovereign independent revolutionary crypto-anarchist:

1. Check your coverage at Blockstream's Interactive coverage map
2. Get the required hardware - software defined radio (SDR) interface, satellite dish/antenna, low-noise block downconverter (LNB), power supply, mounting hardware, cables and connectors.
3. Install the required software - Bitcoin FIBRE, GNU Radio and GR OsmoSDR.
4. Install the satellite receiver.
5. Align your satellite dish with the help of the receiver application.

And that’s it

You’re good to go. You will now be able to transact and transmit using radio wave frequency, without any need for the internet. Thanks to CEO Adam Back and his crew at Blockstream.

“You could set up a Bitcoin mining operation in the middle of the desert powered by solar...”
Blockstream CEO Adam Back

You may be surprised to know

That this Adam Back is the very same person mentioned in Satoshi Nakamoto’s original white paper published in 2009. If you go to the references at the end of the document, you will see in sixth place: A. Back, "Hashcash - a denial of service counter-measure," http://www.hashcash.org/papers/hashcash.pdf, 2002. In other words this is one of the people who inspired Satoshi to create and release Bitcoin and the underlying blockchain technology in the first place. Notice how the early proto-name for Bitcoin is “Hashcash”, due to the fact that it is mined via hash power.

To add to the global satellite coverage

Blockstream is also launching a new API (app programming interface) which lets satellites be used to exchange encrypted messages. These are paid for by users via the integrated Lightning Network.

“Bitcoin has always been about uncensorable money, and now we have uncensorable communications as well.”

Blockstream CSO Samson Mow

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