Bitcoin is really flying! Blockstream successfully receives the first Bitcoin transaction from a satellite

Blockstream’s blockchain satellite has completed its first Bitcoin transaction, the news has been confirmed by Blockstream CEO Adam Back on Twitter.

Back cited BitcoinVPS creator Grubles on Twitter, whose satellite node successfully received blockchain transactions on his computer while the network was disabled.

The transaction was successfully sent back via satellite: Bitcoin is in space! https://twitter.com/notgrubles/status/899447987163844609

Last week, Blockstream announced that it would use leased satellites to broadcast the Bitcoin blockchain to the world.

Africa, Europe, South America, and North America will be the first customers of the service, with test users in these regions now able to download a fully functional bitcoin node.

Blockstream's goal is to make Bitcoin accessible to people from regions with unstable internet infrastructure and currencies.

The system is designed to ensure a 64kbit/sec network connection, "providing sufficient bandwidth to reliably maintain network synchronization with moderate latency."

Users need to prepare a 45 cm long satellite dish, such as a TV satellite dish, and a personal computer or dedicated hardware, such as a Raspberry Pi.

Radio links can be established using open source software such as GNU Radio, and while an Internet connection is still required to conduct transactions, Back believes SMS will be sufficient.

According to Back, Blockstream will release an API for developers and businesses to send data via satellite for a small fee.

Former Bitcoin Core developer Jeff Garzik had planned to launch a similar project back in 2014 but later stopped it. In a Reddit discussion, Garzik argued that Blockstream’s Satellite would mean centralization of the enterprise version of the Bitcoin blockchain.

“It’s not expensive to pay a satellite provider to broadcast transactions for you. But it’s a centralized data service, and through a centralized (satellite) provider, there’s a lot of risk of shutdown and censorship.

It’s also a good way to centralize ownership of the Blockstream version of the blockchain, since it will appear that only Blockstream is communicating with the satellite.”