How will Bitcoin work when you're in half bombed area without electricity and signal?
we’ve failed to serve those people who need bitcoin the most.
listen to how people in gaza struggle with using their own money and turning it into cash to buy food and basic supplies under israeli occupation.
bitcoin should’ve fixed this. we need to work harder.
https://www.npr.org/2025/09/20/nx-s1-5547307/gaza-palestine-israel-shekel-cash-shortage
Discussion
internet on a phone is often more reliable than having to deal with physical cash. listen to the episode.
I can't, my friend. I'm getting panic attacks when people suffer, I must avoid such topics. I don't deny Bitcoin would cover a lot of loss, outer help included, but the major weakness is still on my mind.
And when there are no cellular networks available or are taken down by governments/bombs?
I feel like these cases are a bit unexplored, but yeah mesh networks would be helpful to connect offline areas to other online areas. Really hope things like meshtastic, reticulum and lora can become more mainstream and be used in these scenarios. At least simple messages and transactions/tokens can be transmitted.
You don't even need the internet anymore.
Exactly, and I am not even sure cashu can really help here, you still need connection to the mints once in a while right? Yeah offlin exchange is possible, but let's be honest, can you really go for months without internet? I am not sure.
Would be interesting to see development targeting exactly these scenarios, but I don't think this can ever be solve, first you need to better decentralize network infrastructure.
You can generate power even with a bicycle dynamo and send / receive via radio waves. Of course these folks need to be aware of this and cash is much simpler.
Fun fact: it won't.