Streaming the Dash Blockchain to the whole Planet from Geosynchronous Satellites

[Gilemon]

The proposal is live here:
https://www.dashcentral.org/p/DASH-Satellites-Demonstration

You can check the 512 kbps C-Band lease price for full Asia coverage in Appendix B - Financial details of the full pdf version here:
http://nthinking.net/vrak/dash/proposals/Dash_Satellites_Demonstration_Proposal-v1.20.pdf

Happy to answer your questions here or at DASH Central.

 

[The philosofers coin]

UdjinM6 and codablock. Thank you for making it easy to vote on this. Greatly appreciate the time-saving you have given me in not needing to research.

 

[demo]

UdjinM6 and codablock. Thank you for making it easy to vote on this. Greatly appreciate the time-saving you have given me in not needing to research.

No matter how bad ratings you are giving to me , the truth will be revealed one day.
Beware of the vote history and of the ratings you are giving everywhere, because based on these very ratings we will measure and mathematically prove one day in the future, how much dumb you are.

By the way, @UdjinM6 asked some reasonable questions.
I hope that the proposal owner will answer them in more detail.

 

[blockchaintech]

Consider a Western Union kind of scenario. The granddaughter is called Carol and she works hard in a developed country to support her grandparents. Her grandma is called Alice and she lives in a small village in Papua New Guinea with no internet access. So, Alice needs to go the closest city to receive the money from Carol. But now in this village, there is a Bob with a satellite dish and willing to accept DASH.

The project is interesting, without a doubt.
But the probability of it being used in the medium term (5 years) is negligible.
Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies have a life of 9 years, and their use at a global level is minimal.
And then there is the most important thing: the literacy of the people.

The profile of people where this solution would be given (papua-guinea for example), I doubt that they have the minimum IT training to be able to carry out a connection.

I see it interesting .., but for a few years. Not now.

 

[demo]

I see it interesting .., but for a few years. Not now.

This is exactly one of the arguments of the stupids, when bitcoin first appeared back in 2009.
The same argument was said when wikipedia appeared, when internet appeared, when the alphabet appeared, when the wheel appeared.

When you hear an argument like that, that something is the future but not now, this means that you are already too late! Run!!!

Broadcasting the blockchain from the sky is an amazing technology that should be already available ...yesterday! And of course not only in Asia, or in Africa, but globally.

 

[Gilemon]

And then there is the most important thing: the literacy of the people.

Indeed, that's why Outernet, which inspired me for this proposal, is such an important project. They are already working very hard on your concern by broadcasting vital information to these areas where free knowledge is a scarce commodity. This kind of successful initiatives help a lot to reduce the education gap you are worried about.

The profile of people where this solution would be given (papua-guinea for example), I doubt that they have the minimum IT training to be able to carry out a connection.

People in these remote areas (eg. PNG, Mongolia, Madagascar) are surprisingly advanced and resourceful when it comes to getting access to satellite communication and to power it up with renewable energy.
In the demonstration, we actually intend to document a real life use case in such remote environment.

 

[Gilemon]

By the way, @UdjinM6 asked some reasonable questions.
I hope that the proposal owner will answer them in more detail.

To me, the questions from @UdjinM6 and @codablock originate from their concern about the price of leasing satellite bandwidth, which then turns into technical limitation: low bandwidth and reception only.

The price for 512 kbps broadcast over Asia is detailed in the pdf. This will already allow 52 GO of data per month. Covering the rest of the world (Europe/Africa, and the Americas) only implies adding two more geostationary satellites.
Doubling the bandwidth does not cost 2 times more but only 30% more. Going bidirectional with a 128 kbps uplink add another 20%.

You'll be the judge about how expensive you think it is, but to me, this is very reasonable considering the area of coverage and usage.
Also with all these upcoming satellite communication projects (5G, homemade CubeSat, OneWeb, Iridium NEXT etc.), it can only further reduce the cost.
So I agree with you, it is not too early to start working on this.

 

[demo]

To me, the questions from @UdjinM6 and @codablock originate from their concern about the price of leasing satellite bandwidth, which then turns into technical limitation: low bandwidth and reception only.

The price for 512 kbps broadcast over Asia is detailed in the pdf. This will already allow 52 GO of data per month. Covering the rest of the world (Europe/Africa, and the Americas) only implies adding two more geostationary satellites.
Doubling the bandwidth does not cost 2 times more but only 30% more. Going bidirectional with a 128 kbps uplink add another 20%.

You'll be the judge about how expensive you think it is, but to me, this is very reasonable considering the area of coverage and usage.
Also with all these upcoming satellite communication projects (5G, homemade CubeSat, OneWeb, Iridium NEXT etc.), it can only further reduce the cost.
So I agree with you, it is not too early to start working on this.

Launching a private satellite costs 25000 dash.

If the masternode owners were not retarded and stupid, they would have stop all stupidities in their budget, allocate their entire budget for 2.5 months, and send a private DASH satellite into space. But the masternode owners deserve an oscar in stupidity, so I am afraid they may act again as usual.

 

[blockchaintech]

This is exactly one of the arguments of the stupids, when bitcoin first appeared back in 2009.
The same argument was said when wikipedia appeared, when internet appeared, when the alphabet appeared, when the wheel appeared.

When you hear an argument like that, that something is the future but not now, this means that you are already too late! Run!!!

Broadcasting the blockchain from the sky is an amazing technology that should be already available ...yesterday! And of course not only in Asia, or in Africa, but globally.

Relax, kid. That you live very tense.

I would love to know your answer if you were presented with this proposal. And you had to decide if you would invest more than 1M $ in this project of your money to see if you saw an ROI before dying. My answer is obvious.
Now it's not the moment.

You should travel more around the world, to know how life is out there, in your county, country, and outside of your country then you would understand many things, not now.

 

[demo]

Relax, kid.
You should travel more around the world, to know how life is out there

Relax old man.
It is not about how life IS out there.
It is about how life WILL BE.

 

[blockchaintech]

Indeed, that's why Outernet, which inspired me for this proposal, is such an important project. They are already working very hard on your concern by broadcasting vital information to these areas where free knowledge is a scarce commodity. This kind of successful initiatives help a lot to reduce the education gap you are worried about.

People in these remote areas (eg. PNG, Mongolia, Madagascar) are surprisingly advanced and resourceful when it comes to getting access to satellite communication and to power it up with renewable energy.
In the demonstration, we actually intend to document a real life use case in such remote environment.

Gileon, I'm sorry. But I think it's not the time.
I repeat, it's interesting, but I think we need other priorities.
Think of more feasible projects, I like your enthusiasm and dedication.

For example: to use the Dash blockchain network (for its immediacy) to provide data immutability solutions in logistics and railways where you have experience (data from signaling beacons in accidents, etc.). It's an idea..

 

[jeffh]

Really interesting proposal here.

It's something I've been thinking about for months now, triggered in part by Evan's post on Medium a couple of months ago about Masternode centralization into datacenters operated by large corporations. It brings up an interesting discussion around the desire to decentralize, not just worldwide, but off-world.

I had some e-mails back and forth with Evan last month about any issues you might have with a satellite up there in GEO and he said that even with ping time >500ms it shouldn't be too much of an issue. I think this only really makes sense if you put a masternode up there, not just a broadcast of the blockchain (you'll be missing all the Tier 2 data if I'm not mistaken).

I have friends who work at SpaceX and spoke to them about this and spent a lot of time investigating this kind of stuff and if you were to do anything right now, leasing time on someone else's satellite is definitely the right call right now, rather than going all in and buying a satellite and getting it up there in space. Even Facebook chose to lease access for their Internet Basics program in Africa.

In the future, as the launch costs continue to drop, Dash might want to invest more into getting the blockchain out there and accessible through satellites - for the most remote parts of the globe. For now though, I'm not really sure that the utility is there, it just makes for really good PR in the short-term. The concerns brought up by other folks in the thread are definitely valid regarding ease-of-access and the need to prioritize things with more short-term and tangible benefits.

Would love to chat more about this off-thread @Gilemon (I'm jeffh on Discord or jefethechefe or Reddit)

 

[demo]

I have friends who work at SpaceX and spoke to them about this and spent a lot of time investigating this kind of stuff and if you were to do anything right now, leasing time on someone else's satellite is definitely the right call right now, rather than going all in and buying a satellite and getting it up there in space.

It is not the right call to buy leasing time on someone else's satellite. You should have your own private satellite, because the main usage of private satellites will be to evade government's censorship and to allow people to freely use cryptocurrencies as their everyday medium of exchange, in order to avoid taxes and the governement control and oppress.

If the satellite does not belong to you, it is very easy for the government to pay more to the company who offers you bandwidth, in order for them to stop broadcasting your coin from space. The governments have unlimited money, they print money from nothing, dont they? Facebook is an awful paradigm you gave, as long as it is controled by agents , so it is normal for them to obey to whatever regulations are imposed.

But the worldwide cryptocurrency is ment to destroy the current status quo and the current world monetary system, and one way to do this is to broadcast the blockchain from private satellites in outer space. Most of the governments have a lot of army and police on earth, but very few of them can control and police the space.

It will be a new Radio Londres and a Star war.
Be brave, lets smash the empire once and forever.

 

[demo]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-satellite_weapon#ASAT_in_the_era_of_strategic_defense

The era of the Strategic Defense Initiative (proposed in 1983) focused primarily on the development of systems to defend against nuclear warheads, however, some of the technologies developed may be useful also for anti-satellite use. Research in the U.S. and the Soviet Union was proving that the requirements, at least for orbital based energy weapon systems, were, with available technology, close to impossible. Both countries began to reduce expenditure from 1989 and the Russian Federation unilaterally discontinued all SDI research in 1992. Research and Development (both of ASAT systems and other space based/deployed weapons) has, however, reported to have been resumed under the government of Vladimir Putin as a counter to renewed U.S. Strategic Defense efforts post Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. However, the status of these efforts, or indeed how they are being funded through National Reconnaissance Office projects of record, remains unclear.

In short, if Dash and the rest cryptocurrencies start launching satellites, the governments cannot easily shut them down. Come on, stupid masternodes! If you were smart, in two and a half months, you could have your own satellite! Will you? Of course NOT, because....stupids and spies bought masternodes in order to stop governance. Due to the extreme stupidity of the Dash masternode owners, another cryptocurrency will probably take the place of the digital cash of the future, that was initially planned to be given to Dash.

 

[Acedian]

Elon Musk's SpaceX plans to send the first of its 4,425 super-fast internet satellites into space in 2019. SpaceX will begin to launch internet satellites into orbit in 2019. It is part of its plan to put 4,425 satellites into space. SpaceX will launch a prototype satellite before the end of this year.

 

[Acedian]

Elon Musk's SpaceX plans to send the first of its 4,425 super-fast internet satellites into space in 2019. SpaceX will begin to launch internet satellites into orbit in 2019. It is part of its plan to put 4,425 satellites into space. SpaceX will launch a prototype satellite before the end of this year.

Sorry this doesn't read well. I did just copy/pasta from Google.

 

[stan.distortion]

The utility for this is a chicken and egg problem, if there where no GPS satellites we wouldn't have GPS utility. Knowing what we know now we'd be getting GPS signals into space ASAP but back in the dumbphone days it wasn't a big deal for most, those that knew of GPS and understood it's possibilities where closely watching the opening up of military GPS signals and advances in hardware but they where relatively few before affordable satnav devices started coming to the market.

Just supposing we had the Bitcoin blockchain broadcast back in, say, 2012, where would we be now? Probably not at the point mobile manufacturers integrate receiver chips (or integrate them with existing GPS chips) but I'm pretty sure we'd have plenty of vending machine type applications, from things that spit out soda cans to car park barriers, probably a few of them well established.

Maybe you're wondering why would a mobile manufacturer want to receive the blockchain via satellite? There are a few types of attack based on separating your wallet from the blockchain, have a second copy coming in and there's no way those attacks can work, kind of like 2FA for blockchain data. And the phone can receive transactions without data connectivity ofc.

Gilemon's listed many use cases with the proposal but maybe they need to be condensed or categories put on them for how the data's being used, there are an awful lot of use cases and asking "how could it apply in this situation?" rather than "what does it do?" helps imo.

 

[demo]

Elon Musk's SpaceX plans to send the first of its 4,425 super-fast internet satellites into space in 2019. SpaceX will begin to launch internet satellites into orbit in 2019. It is part of its plan to put 4,425 satellites into space. SpaceX will launch a prototype satellite before the end of this year.

You missed the point here. It is not about satellite internet. It is about streaming a file from a satellite. Streaming a file (the blockchain actually) is uni-directional and is much easier to achieve, than the bi-directional communication required by the satellite internet.

 

[demo]

What is the limit to how many satellites can orbit the earth?
We fit in satellites between 2000 km and 35786 km so the total mass of the orbiting satellites is
Vtotal=9.341×10^14km3
Mtotal=5.90×10^24 kg

The mass of earth is Mearth=5.97×10^24kg.
and Mtotal should be less than Mearth which it is, as you can see.

Average Satellite Mass = 800 Kg
Average Satellite volume = 1.267×10^−7km3

So taking into account the mass of earth, we can orbit 7.375.000.000.000.000.000.000 satellites.
Taking into account the volume of the orbit zone, we can orbit 7.372.533.543.804.262.036.306 satellites.

Too many, for the government to spot them and shut them down.

 

[jeffh]

What is the limit to how many satellites can orbit the earth?
We fit in satellites between 2000 km and 35786 km so the total mass of the orbiting satellites is
Vtotal=9.341×10^14km3
Mtotal=5.90×10^24 kg

The mass of earth is Mearth=5.97×10^24kg.
and Mtotal should be less than Mearth which it is, as you can see.

Average Satellite Mass = 800 Kg
Average Satellite volume = 1.267×10^−7km3

So taking into account the mass of earth, we can orbit 7.375.000.000.000.000.000.000 satellites.
Taking into account the volume of the orbit zone, we can orbit 7.372.533.543.804.262.036.306 satellites.

Too many, for the government to spot them and shut them down.

That's good and all but you don't really want anywhere near that many satellites up there. The orbital debris problem would be astronomical, it's something scientists call the Kessler effect.

The Kessler effect, or Kessler syndrome, is a scenario in which the density of objects in low earth orbit (LEO) is high enough that collisions between objects could cause a cascade where each collision generates space debris that increases the likelihood of further collisions. One implication is that the distribution of debris in orbit could render space activities and the use of satellites in specific orbital ranges infeasible for many generations. SOURCE

So let's not use your numbers at all because what you're promoting is a terrible idea.

 

[demo]

That's good and all but you don't really want anywhere near that many satellites up there. The orbital debris problem would be astronomical, it's something scientists call the Kessler effect.

The Kessler effect, or Kessler syndrome, is a scenario in which the density of objects in low earth orbit (LEO) is high enough that collisions between objects could cause a cascade where each collision generates space debris that increases the likelihood of further collisions. One implication is that the distribution of debris in orbit could render space activities and the use of satellites in specific orbital ranges infeasible for many generations. SOURCE

Kessler effect was a problem back in 1978, when the techology of the satellites was primitive. Nowdays the satellites can easily and automatically slightly change their orbit in case a space junk is detected. So space junk is not a real problem.

Kessler effect is applied in low earh orbit (LEO). Even a catastrophic Kessler scenario at LEO would pose minimal risk for launches continuing past LEO, or satellites traveling at medium Earth orbit (MEO) or GEO.

You dont need your satellite to fly in LEO, in order to stream the blockchain. Actually the higher the satellite flies, the better for the streaming is, as long as the ground coverage increases. AND I REPEAT IT ONE MORE TIME, we are talking here about streaming the blockchain (preferably from MEO or GEO), not about satellite internet in LEO.

Please stop throwing the ball away, and keep talking in subject.

<vote history>
https://dashvotetracker.com/history.php?ProposalID=392
</vote history>

 

[demo]

Once again a proposal where when you ask them WHY THEY VOTE LIKE THIS, they dont answer. Obviously the spies...

Spies have been instructed by their employers to destroy the DASH governance system, at all costs. .... The employers of the spies tremble with fear when they realize that a cryptocoin will occur that will have effective governance, so they want to control it and intercept it, so they buy in order to gain voting rights and vote against whatever proposal is towards the effective governance goal.

And of course the spies are instructed by their employers to vote in favor of mma fighers, rain ponchos, conferences, ugly flying-jets and meaningless meet-ups instead of voting for usefull projects. And on the other hand, the stupids believe them. Too many spies, stupid and greedy people over here. It is a real challenge to dissolve them all.

 

[Acedian]

Once again a proposal where when you ask them WHY THEY VOTE LIKE THIS, they dont answer. Obviously the spies...

And of course the spies are instructed by their employers to vote in favor of mma fighers, rain ponchos, conferences, ugly flying-jets and meaningless meet-ups instead of voting for usefull projects. And on the other hand, the stupids believe them. Too many spies, stupid and greedy people over here. It is a real challenge to dissolve them all.

Why not switch to Bitcoin, I have heard they have it all sorted You don't agree with some of the successful proposals, I understand that! I don't agree with them all. But, resorting to ad hominem attacks will devalue the useful ideas that you present.

 

[demo]

But, resorting to ad hominem attacks will devalue the useful ideas that you present.

The ad hominem technique is being used against me. Have a look at the bulk troll ratings they are giving to me, they are the definition of ad hominem.

There is also the reverse ad hominem, which is also widely used by the spies. You know, those gentle people and beautifull ladies who tell lies in a polite and pleasant manner in order to convince the stupid.

 

[Acedian]

The ad hominem technique is being used against me. Have a look at the bulk troll ratings they are giving to me, they are the definition of ad hominem.

There is also the reverse ad hominem, which is also widely used by the spies. You know, those gentle people and beautifull ladies who tell lies in a polite and pleasant manner in order to convince the stupid.

I am sure you are correct, but stooping to the same level will undermine your own position.

May I ask, do you believe in Dash?

 

[demo]

I am sure you are correct, but stooping to the same level will undermine your own position.

May I ask, do you believe in Dash?

No I dont believe in Dash. I believe in Dash community. And when I say "Dash community" I mean almost everyone who is not a masternode owner, together with some few masternode owners also. For example, the spies, although masternode owners, they do not belong to the community.

 

[qwizzie]

No I dont believe in Dash. I believe in Dash community. And when I say "Dash community" I mean almost everyone who is not a masternode owner, together with some few masternode owners also. For example, the spies, although masternode owners, they do not belong to the community.

I think all masternode owners (no matter how they vote or how they behave on a forum) are as much part of the Dash community as miners, users and merchants.
Stating that some of the masternode owners (a few ?) do belong and the rest do not belong is a strange statement. Specially when you consider that a masternode owner can be an user too.

 

[demo]

I think all masternode owners (no matter how they vote or how they behave on a forum) are as much part of the Dash community as miners, users and merchants.
Stating that some of the masternode owners (a few ?) do belong and the rest do not belong is a strange statement. Specially when you consider that a masternode owner can be an user too.

Take a random community, formed for whatever purpose, and imagine a group of people that want to destroy the community.
Do you consider this group of people, the destroyers, part of the community?
Your statement is a strange statement, not mine.

 

[demo]

 

[stan.distortion]

10 days to go and the budget is only 1/3rd full yet this has nearly 400 no votes? Seriously? It's worth the proposed amount just in promotion, let alone the potential benefits.

But it looks like it's going to crash and burn and I'm guessing that's because of scaling, how can low power satellite broadcasting transmit the whole chain with the huge block sizes planned? It can't, not with a low power option and the same problem is going to effect countless applications that use the "old" way of doing things, anyone basing their systems on full nodes or needing a full copy of the blockchain because the sizes are enormous, high end servers could handle it up to a point but not 300MB blocks, that's about 160TB a day!

So what are the options? Flagged transactions are the first thing that came to mind, paying an extra fee to flip a bit saying "I want this broadcast over satellite". It's a pie-in-the-sky solution involving fundamental changes but imho something along those lines will be needed for many services post-evolution, something to filter only the transactions relevant to that service rather than the entire chain. That's only one option, I'm guessing something like HD wallets or other smart uses of cryptography can offer alternative solutions and any plan of that kind will also raise the question of filtering other transaction types, a service only accepting instant and/or private transactions for example.

Scaling is definitely an issue long term, for now the entire chain can be broadcast over satellite without much difficulty and a good chunk of that can be carried straight over from the similar blockstream project but when capacity becomes overwhelming it will be an issue for many projects doing things the old way, not only this.