Off-Grid Developer Sent Bitcoin Transaction Using goTenna & Samourai Wallet

Developer From New Zealand Sends Bitcoin Without Using The Web Or Power Grid

Imagine if you could send Bitcoin to anyone in the world without needing electricity or internet connection. Does that seem crazy? If if you hear the story of a developer from New Zealand that managed to send a transaction over 12km using only four goTennas and a $30 USD Android smartphone, you might believe it. The story was originally reported by The Next Web’s Hard Fork.

The developer @Coinsurenz has recently tweeted his feat. He used goTennas, which are very small devices that explorers and adventurers use to stay connected to each other in rural areas in which there is no cellphone signal at all. You can use them with any smartphone that has bluetooth.

Over the weekend I sent a bitcoin transaction to a relay 12.6km away with no cell network or internet connection. Here's a tweetstorm about how I used @gotenna and @SamouraiWallet to do it

— ℭoinsure(F9 BE B4 D9) (@Coinsurenz) October 16, 2018

Basically, the developer used these antennas to create a network in which he connected his smartphone via bluetooth.

First, the developer choose a wide open area, as the technology works better without any kind of interference and placed the antennas six km apart of each other in a high ground to get a good connection. He then used his smartphone to generate a Bitcoin transaction via his Samourai wallet and used goTenna to send it.

The messaging service delivered the Bitcoin transaction to the smartphone of the man’s girlfriend, which was 12km apart from him and was also connected to the goTenna network. He made two transactions, one 5.6km away and the other 12.7km away.

The Potential Of The Technology

While it may only sound like a nice gimmick, the technology actually has some interesting applications. You could still make your financial transactions and send cryptographied information via the blockchain without energy or the internet.

The original report from the story exemplified that this kind of tech could be used after natural disasters and, if you were to use it with solar powered energy, you could basically use it to make transactions off the grid. However, the report also noted that it was important for this off-grid network to be in sync with the main Bitcoin network or it could double spend.

In any case, this is a very interesting technology and it could be used in many different ways with a bit of creativity.