Fun

Venezuelans Made Lightning-Savvy Hardware to Use Bitcoin During Blackouts

News Feed - 2019-11-01 06:11:25

On March 7, 2019, all the lights went out in Venezuela. Total blackout.


While the electricity crisis was already part of everyday life, the blackout still crippled communications across the country. It also inspired Venezuelan Randy Brito to focus fully on the Locha Mesh initiative, an open-source project working to enable private messages and payments without an internet connection.


During the blackout earlier this year, it became clear to Brito that poor internet infrastructure was a leading barrier to crypto adoption. People were using dollars during the blackout not because they preferred cash, but because they lacked alternatives.


“In Venezuela, cryptocurrency adoption can be very complicated,” Brito told CoinDesk, adding: “People can have trouble even downloading a wallet because of the lack of infrastructure.”


Locha Mesh has created two hardware prototypes so far, Turpial and Harpy, both of which act like small routers that don’t rely on local WiFi. Instead, they pass messages around the “mesh” until one outlet finally has an internet connection. (It’s not dissimilar to the work of New York-based startup goTenna.)


“These devices allow commerce [during a blackout] by making it possible for users to send and receive payments using the bitcoin network,” Brito said, describing the devices as “easy to carry and hide” for safety purposes.


In March, these small devices created an experimental system that actually worked for 22 consecutive hours, even connecting Harpy devices to the Blockstream satellite and relaying that connectivity to other users via the Turpial device. Next up, came a focus on enabling small, fast payments using a scaling solution called the Lightning Network.


“The Lightning Network requires you to be connected, otherwise, you wouldn’t know if your counterpart is lying,” Brito said. “These nodes, these devices are always connected to the Lightning Network.”


This struggle to use bitcoin without electricity is widespread across emerging markets, from Venezuela to Lebanon to the Palestinian territories. So Brito presented his latest mesh-network hardware tools for such transactions at the 2019 Lightning Conference in Berlin, because Locha Mesh is currently looking for investors and donors. His six-person team aims to start selling these devices in the first quarter of 2020.


“We are currently finishing the second prototype and development kits,” he said.


The team’s expectations are set on providing an accessible and safe form of communication for anyone in the world, said Luis Ruiz, CTO and co-founder of Locha told CoinDesk.


Said Ruiz: “Basically, we are providing an accessible solution for anyone who finds themselves without energy or internet access in need for a safe, decentralized and censorship-resistant way of communication.”


Locha Mesh’s Turpial prototypes, photo by Diana Aguilar for CoinDesk

News Feed

Spellfire to Huobi Primelist on January 27th
Spellfire to Huobi Primelist on January 27th sponsored Spellfire is gaining momentum. The legend is back better than ever. Chase the $SPELLFIR
Government to Airdrop $9 Billion in Free Money to 7 Million Hong Kong Residents
Government to Airdrop $9 Billion in Free Money to 7 Million Hong Kong Residents The government of Hong Kong has decided to airdrop about $9 billion in free money to an estimated
Dogecoin Must Hold This Support Or Risk Crashing To $0.015, Analyst Warns
Reason to trust Strict editorial policy that focuses on accuracy, relevance, and impartiality Created by industry experts and meticulously reviewed The highest standards in reporting and pu
GensoKishi Online “Meta World” Is Set to Transform Blockchain Gaming With Innovative Metaverse
GensoKishi Online "Meta World" Is Set to Transform Blockchain Gaming With Innovative Metaverse sponsored Metaverse is the trending concept in the blockchain industry due to its mass
Wolfgang Rückerl4 hours agoHow to improve your Web2 business with blockchainAlthough blockchain has become a mainstream topic in the finance and business worlds for several years now, it’s definitely not too late to j
Bitcoin Sees Largest Net Taker Volume Drop Of 2025 – Traders React To Trump-Elon Clash
Reason to trust Strict editorial policy that focuses on accuracy, relevance, and impartiality Created by industry experts and meticulously reviewed The highest standards in reporting and pu
Skybridge Estimates Bitcoin’s Fair Market Value at $40K and Ethereum’s at $2,800
Skybridge Estimates Bitcoin"s Fair Market Value at $40K and Ethereum"s at $2,800 Skybridge Capital’s founder says bitcoin’s fair market value is about $40,000 based o
David Attlee47 minutes agoUzbekistan permits two banks to issue crypto cardsKapital Bank and Ravnaq Bank got approval from the National Agency for Perspective Projects to participate in the digital sandbox of crypto regu
CFTC Chairman Confirms Ether Cryptocurrency Is a Commodity
CFTC Chairman Heath Tarbert has said ether, the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, is a commodity. Speaking at the Yahoo! Finance All Markets Summ
Martin Young3 hours agoCelsius seeks court approval to start repaying customers by year-endThe embattled crypto lender is seeking final court approval for a restructuring plan that will start repaying creditors before th
Dutch regulator warns of crypto pump-and-dump risks ahead of MiCA
Josh O"Sullivan14 hours agoDutch regulator warns of crypto pump-and-dump risks ahead of MiCAThe Dutch AFM issued warnings about crypto market manipulation, focusing on pump-and-dump schemes ahead of MiCA’s implementati
Elon Musk sues Sam Altman, OpenAI over agreement breach
Amaka Nwaokocha13 hours agoElon Musk sues Sam Altman, OpenAI over agreement breachElon Musk urges OpenAI to return to its open-source principles and requests an injunction to prevent the for-profit exploitation of AGI te