How would you handle situation, if someone offline tries to spend same money twice in different remote cities? This is so called double-spending problem. The way blockchains solve it is by all nodes coming online and synchronising and agreeing on events before accepting any payment as valid. You can't run transactions offline.
There are certain techniques that can take some transactions out of blockchains. But this requires initial deposits and money being locked up with strict transaction rules attached. For example, let's say you want to pay your neighbor $5 for a chicken offline - first you' need to create an account that basically locks up money for away for any other purpose other than paying money to your neighbor, then you deposit at least 5$ to this account, once this is done and this can only be done online - only then can you pay to your neighbor offline. Problem is, this money will be frozen away for any other use, for certain period of time, to guarantee your neighbor that when you pay him you do have real funds online.
Being always short on cash being able to deposit and guarantee funds early on in business deals is typically is what these poor people without internet access struggle the most.
Current blockchain tech (bitcoin, ehtereum, etc) is built on assumption that internet is always there. It's not even clear what would happen in case of major network division was to occur for noticeable period of time, for example either because of event of war or a natural catastrophe, or major sun flare event. In a possible scenario two partitions would continue to run transactions and would not be able to merge resulting in blockchain branching out - for example it could result in 'bitcoin west' and 'bitcoin east' if a major military conflict would broke out that would sever internet connection between two blocks.
Thanks for the info, I edited my comment. It’s even more unclear to me now what value blockchain has. It seems like the value is solely to avoid regulation, but I like regulation. I don’t want people skirting taxes or doing illegal things, for example.
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How would you handle situation, if someone offline tries to spend same money twice in different remote cities? This is so called double-spending problem. The way blockchains solve it is by all nodes coming online and synchronising and agreeing on events before accepting any payment as valid. You can't run transactions offline.
There are certain techniques that can take some transactions out of blockchains. But this requires initial deposits and money being locked up with strict transaction rules attached. For example, let's say you want to pay your neighbor $5 for a chicken offline - first you' need to create an account that basically locks up money for away for any other purpose other than paying money to your neighbor, then you deposit at least 5$ to this account, once this is done and this can only be done online - only then can you pay to your neighbor offline. Problem is, this money will be frozen away for any other use, for certain period of time, to guarantee your neighbor that when you pay him you do have real funds online.
Being always short on cash being able to deposit and guarantee funds early on in business deals is typically is what these poor people without internet access struggle the most.
Current blockchain tech (bitcoin, ehtereum, etc) is built on assumption that internet is always there. It's not even clear what would happen in case of major network division was to occur for noticeable period of time, for example either because of event of war or a natural catastrophe, or major sun flare event. In a possible scenario two partitions would continue to run transactions and would not be able to merge resulting in blockchain branching out - for example it could result in 'bitcoin west' and 'bitcoin east' if a major military conflict would broke out that would sever internet connection between two blocks.
Thanks for the info, I edited my comment. It’s even more unclear to me now what value blockchain has. It seems like the value is solely to avoid regulation, but I like regulation. I don’t want people skirting taxes or doing illegal things, for example.