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
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.
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.
Given that a 1 square meter solar panel produces 200W, and the energy efficiency of an Ebit E10 ASIC miner is 11100 * 10^6 hash per J, you can compute 200 * 11100 * 10^6 hash per second so no, in an apocalyptic event, the hash rate will hardly be 0.
> 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.
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