<p>It depends on what you mean by "work without the internet".</p>

<p>There is already at least <a href="https://www.casascius.com" rel="nofollow">one vendor</a> who is making physical bitcoins. That is accomplished by exposing the public key on the face of the coin and hiding the private key under a tamper proof sticker. Such a scheme still relies on the internet, however, because the value of the coins is dependent upon the internet based Bitcoin blockchain.</p>

<p>The actual Bitcoin protocol itself could not be modified to exist without the Internet (or some equivalent wide area network). This is because to prevent the double spend problem without a central authority you must have communication between the network to determine if a coin has already been spent. (The physical coins above essentially rely on trusting the "central authority" of the coin maker. For example, that he will not mint duplicate coins, mint coins without valid private keys, and that his tamper proof stickers are truly tamper proof.)</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-04-19T16:58:26.087Z
`because the value of the coins is dependent upon the internet based Bitcoin blockchain.` And the trustworthiness of the guy who minted it.
Nick ODell
CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-04-19T17:32:08.480Z
I think covered that in the second paragraph. Just wanted to make it clear in the first paragraph that if you did this without the backing Bitcoin protocol (and Internet) it just becomes another fiat currency.
David Ogren
CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-06-03T05:17:43.290Z
still you could have a local network *coin based only on the low hashing power of the local computers, and having a low difficulty . . . or provide yourself ( locally ) a few GPU/ASICS miners to make it more secure. nop ?
neofutur
CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-04-19T13:55:51.587Z
2013-04-19T14:07:03.990Z
2013-04-19T14:07:03.990Z
David Ogren
<p>Without the internet there is no "global" bitcoin network. How would you know if a transaction is valid?? </p>

<p>The only thing that could work, totally seperate from bitcoin is local network alto currencies.</p>

<p>IF internet is down for a limited time, developers could deal with some local network alto currency in exchange for bitcoin, the risk of course would be on the bitcoin accepting entity.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-06-03T06:15:13.913Z
2013-06-03T06:15:13.913Z
Aurigae
<p>Is it possible for bitcoins to manifest itself as  concrete currency so that it can be used as paper money ?</p>

<transactions>
Can bitcoin system be modded to work without internet
Ali
# Can bitcoin system be modded to work without internet

(Asked by: username_0 on 2013-04-19)

Is it possible for bitcoins to manifest itself as concrete currency so that it can be used as paper money ?

**Tags:** transactions


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## 2 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2013-04-19. Score: 3

It depends on what you mean by "work without the internet".

There is already at least [one vendor](https://www.casascius.com) who is making physical bitcoins. That is accomplished by exposing the public key on the face of the coin and hiding the private key under a tamper proof sticker. Such a scheme still relies on the internet, however, because the value of the coins is dependent upon the internet based Bitcoin blockchain.

The actual Bitcoin protocol itself could not be modified to exist without the Internet (or some equivalent wide area network). This is because to prevent the double spend problem without a central authority you must have communication between the network to determine if a coin has already been spent. (The physical coins above essentially rely on trusting the "central authority" of the coin maker. For example, that he will not mint duplicate coins, mint coins without valid private keys, and that his tamper proof stickers are truly tamper proof.)

> **Comments:**
> **username_2**: `because the value of the coins is dependent upon the internet based Bitcoin blockchain.` And the trustworthiness of the guy who minted it.  
> **username_1**: I think covered that in the second paragraph. Just wanted to make it clear in the first paragraph that if you did this without the backing Bitcoin protocol (and Internet) it just becomes another fiat currency.  
> **username_3**: still you could have a local network *coin based only on the low hashing power of the local computers, and having a low difficulty . . . or provide yourself ( locally ) a few GPU/ASICS miners to make it more secure. nop ?  

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### Answer by username_4 on 2013-06-03. Score: 0

Without the internet there is no "global" bitcoin network. How would you know if a transaction is valid??

The only thing that could work, totally seperate from bitcoin is local network alto currencies.

IF internet is down for a limited time, developers could deal with some local network alto currency in exchange for bitcoin, the risk of course would be on the bitcoin accepting entity.


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