"Her blueprint for survival also depends upon working internet"
I see a potential point of failure.
I see a potential point of failure.
Only a decentralized blockchain is needed for confidence in the data on it.
Ubiquitous internet is not needed, especially for the consumer.
Whether there are mere internet cafes, or data runners like the pony express updating nodes occasionally over long remote distances, we do have an asset which can be used offline.
On the consumer side, transactions can be signed offline, and broadcasted later.
Offline, consumers would be able to tell people their bitcoin address, would be able to check the balance of their bitcoin address, and would be able to create transactions with someone else.
For the consumer they could still store unlimited amounts and take up no space, it would still be infinitely divisible, and securable.
edit: hello downvotes, my argument isn't whether it would be more useful than some other bartered good, I would prefer if you had an actual rebuttal to the technology features I described, because downvotes make it seem incorrect to people less exposed to this technology and I'm confident that its not.
- There's a vanishingly narrow band of "apocalypse" where the internet is gone, but everyone still has electricity and computers and the time and ability to agree on digital consensus protocols.
- Confirmation time on the blockchain is a high multiple of ping time. Bitcoin has 10 minute blocks based on an assumption that all miners will learn about messages within 1 minute, and it doesn't consider transactions confirmed until 6 blocks have passed.[1] If it takes a week for messages to travel through your pony express network, then transactions are final in 7106 = 420 days, which is a long time to hang out waiting for your transaction to clear in a post-apocalyptic wasteland.
- Security assumptions. Bitcoin security depends on some assumptions like lack of prolonged network segmentation, or ability of each honest user to connect to at least one other honest user,[2] and it seems ... at least non-obvious that any given participant in a pony-express network can verify that the network's security assumptions have been met.
[1] https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Help:FAQ#Why_do_I_have_to_wait_10...
Bitcoin would be merely reduced to a slow settlement layer, but this can still allow a network managed supply over greater distances than someone's bottlecap or cigarette trading system.
I think it's fairly safe to say that a scenario with even sporadical internet is not quite a doomsday scenario yet. Or even having enough reliable power to afford running Bitcoin miners and other such luxurious things like running computers at all when survival is at stake.
In times of crisis people tend to barter and trade goods they need, not money.
I am just imagining a bunch of post-apocalyptic farmers in a faraway China suddenly becoming pure slaves when someone comes with a few million BTC from Africa. Isn't happening.
The only reason BTC would survive is if it would provide the means for inter-planetary-government-independent currency. But that's not going to happen since double-spend is only alleviated with a centralised (as in - globally available) blockchain.
I'm actually kind of sad that I didn't mine a few myself back when I thought it was a passing fad...
Then I lost them while reinstalling Linux, and didn't think much of it. sigh
people have broadcasted bitcoin transactions via long range radio frequency before.
And why would anyone actually bother when they can just use something that doesn't require power to spend? Especially considering that international trade would be toast anyway.
So your point is invalid.
A big network of ISPs like what we have today? That could be destroyed.
Computers communicating to each other over long distances? I don't think it is hard - or so low priority to implement - that the disorganized nomadic doomsday scenario perpetuates itself for very long.