GoTenna, Cryptocurrency & Puerto Rico
I came across GoTenna project some time ago and I found this project quite intriguing. There are several bottlenecks with the technology at present such as the amount of data that can be transmitted at present. But one key capability which is theoretically possible with this technology would be the ability to integrate it with the ability to access the Bitcoin blockchain.
There has been a lot of excitement around Blockstream's satellite which exists for good reason, one criticism of this is that it will be transmitting Blockstream's version of the blockchain thus one would have to trust Blockstream's version. I believe there should be further methods to make Bitcoin censorship resistant and resistance to natural disasters.
Take what happened in Puerto Rico recently, ATM's have been down due to the failure of the power grid. Now would it be possible for a 'disaster proof' node to exist in the area? Could it be possible to 'deploy' theses disaster proof nodes after an event such as a natural disaster. For instance, would it be possible to implement balloon such as Project Loon (http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/google-internet-transmitting-balloons-puerto-rico-hurricane-maria-phone-service-project-loon-tesla-a7987671.html) which could be a node that could relay transactions in addition to relaying important information via a mesh-network such as GoTenna? If this idea has any merit is there a way to incentivize a group to design and implement this idea? What are your thoughts?