The text below is a direct excerpt from Marty’s Bent issue 1177: “The pressure forcing alternative transaction relay solutions.” Sign up for the newsletter here.
When the going gets tough, the tough get going. Despite the fact that most of the mainstream business press, academic economists, and opportunistic politicians would like the world to believe that bitcoiners are nothing more than speculators looking to get themselves blown up quick, there are countless examples that bicoiners are some of the most resourceful people I have ever known. met in my life. This week provides a prime example of that ingenuity taking place in nature.
As the war in Ukraine continues, the internet is proving less reliable than usual, with major disruptions preventing people from accessing key services. One of them being the ability to broadcast and receive bitcoin transactions. This prompted bitcoin community builders to begin erecting mesh networks that allow individuals to relay and receive transactions and other types of communication over a mesh network that is not entirely dependent on the Internet. We’ve covered mesh networks and their importance in this rag extensively over the years.
Most of the coverage to date has focused on the potential of mesh networks and people sending one-time transactions over mesh networks to show that it works. What the bitcoin community is building in Ukraine is particularly interesting because it’s the first instance of a mesh network built out of sheer necessity that I’ve encountered throughout my time spanning the space. I hope the mesh network will be successfully launched and used by people seeking to send messages to the bitcoin network and other networks. If this initiative succeeds, it could provide us with a blueprint for replicating it across the world. Creating the potential to make digital communications more robust than ever before. At the very least, it will provide us with many lessons about the barriers to building a mesh network and getting people to use it.
Here’s to the builders. They make the world better.