Just how useful digital payments (including bitcoin) are in a war scenario with limited Internet access breaks my maxiness.
Sure keep little bottles of liqueur and cigarettes for bartering, but having stash of cash is prob a good play. In an unstable world can we afford to not have physical currency?
If truly worried about such a scenario a stash of gold and silver coins probably better than paper cash
both gold and silver are less liquid (and dividable) the ppl think.
short term cash (less then 5 years?)
long(ish) gold and bullets.
dont much care what maxis say. coins and bullion are wise in extreme times.
In that scenario cash, gold and/or Bitcoin will be the least of your problems
Mass attack happens on your country and it's suddenly at war, internet is down for vast periods, what would you rather have to hand?
$1000 cash
$1000 bitcoin
$1000 gold
no it wouldn’t.
its one of the first things you think about and need.
Certainly worth keeping some on hand just in case, but for the grace of God go I (and you good folks ofc 🙏)
i was in albania and kosovo in 1999.
you want currency, metals, ammo, water filtration, long storage cooking fat, dry goods, a generator, some stabilized stored gas, firewood, a bible, a radio, and patience.
Gosh you're interesting! Thanks for chiming in on the thread with irl experience 🙏
So it seems, but a working society, even without a functional power grid, will need a trade & settlement standard or more than one. Many people have gasoline powered generators or jerry cans of fuel or warehouses of long-term food.
How will you bargain for that, barring offering carnal favors?
I have a gun. do you? thug
I have a work to do for you, need any? bitcoiner
Always have some cash in small bills. Not a lot but enough to get by.
Unpopular opinion...it's slightly hard to keep a globally synced blockchain where there is no electricity, let alone internet...so like mesh and otg living needs to happen yesterday? Idk what the solution is 🫥
Aren’t there already solutions to pay with btc without internet? Ecash, cashuApp… but yeah, electricity you will still need
Ecash needs Internet
Yes. It is in no way a useful replacement for physical cash in this scenario.
Have you checked the article? This solves the problem a bit right? Also i remember sealed physical coins, but that’s way harder to realise globally and without internet
Having a starlink to decentralise the internet is a good option
When there is no electriciy you have other things to worry about:
- there's no water (relies on pumps)
- your toilet won't work (relies on pumps)
- your car is dry because gas stations need pumps
- your phone is not working, so you can't share how fucked you are
- pribably a milion other things
What good is physical fiat in the same warzone? If anything that use case scenario is the one for gold/silver, food rations, water/purification means, and a stockpile of bullets.
That all said, if I'm trying to get OUT of that warzone, I'd sure rather have my 12/24 word phrase memorized, or perhaps a bolt with washers that have it stamped into them, than be trying to figure out how I'm getting across borders with physical cash or even gold. It worked for Afghani women who otherwise lost everything escaping the return of the Taliban, which is proof-of-work enough for me.
There's room for some diversification if done thoughtfully, for sure, but the amount I'd bother with in actual fiat cash is next to nothing, because nothing says it'll hold any value in that scenario anyway.
clean water as a resource for barter gon go crazy
when there are no toilets no society will collapse.
The Welsh government recently debated this too.
Does it have to be physical?
We transact ecash offline
You can't, unless you have an exorbitant amount of trust in the people you're buying from. Weird how this misconception seems to be so widespread.
Trust like trusting someone writing you a cheque
Minibits (on my Android) has a nice feature whilst offline for sending sats in exact ecash denominations
Whilst offline (on my iOS) I’m using https://wallet.cashu.me/ to scan qr code… it recognises it and sticks it in a queue for later… when I get online I can redeem it
If the sender hasn’t reverted it, or cancelled the cheque, not ideal but possible
Among a local community there would be more trust… I’m thinking in an extreme scenario
Then there’s interesting things such as this https://offline.cash/
With that level of trust just write and sign some ious. It's in no way a valid replacement to physical cash
