Mesh networking was one of the things I had discussed with Garmin about bringing to HAM. I am not sure what happened to that part of the project, but there was a discussion forum amongst some Italian hams about for a while iirc.
Great stuff!
As always, the issues with making this work from a technical perspective is one thing and then actually getting communities to best utilize a provided solution is another thing entirely.
Being able to broadcast (or send and receive) audio transactions would perhaps be the most useful feature to try implementing initially.
One wonders exactly what percentage of people from the occupy movement, for example, even bother to actively use Bitcoin currently !
That's a good question!
I had been working on porting this to a new version of hamradiocoind:
http://kryptoradio.koodilehto.fi/ I got as far as stripping down the source code and getting ready to move away from glibc. I have my hands so full with other obligations I didn't finish before the changing of the guard here, so I haven't spent any more time on it considering it wouldn't work if the new devs change the protocol.
I'm sure Crunck can use all the help he can get from the community, having said that many seem to be waiting to see what direction he will take HAM in the future.
Since HAM's creation it has faced a strong headwind, instead of ppl coming together and using a Field of dreams mentality "If you build it they will come" it has faced a ton of FUD. fortunately some
get it and don't mind the fudsters, what do sailors do when faced with a headwind? They tack, or manoeuver side to side. In the ham radio community itself, the younger guys, 30/40 somethings have contributed some cool code to the project, however many old timers are kind of set in their ways... Rules rules rules, and rules are fine, but just because some rules are roadblocks to using HAM freely over licence ham radio does not mean you cant use a combination of different types of tech to achieve the goal. Crypto coins that are not solely dependent on a single point of failure... The Absence of internet as we know it.
Between Outernet, p2p wifi, satellite, ham radio, and potentially even Li Fi, a form of WIFI that uses light, and other technologies, this can be done. It's a matter of focus and getting the right folks to the table to build the solutions. Hopefully Crunck will have better luck pulling it all together...
Firechat uses some cool tech to store messages until it can find a way to deliver it's payload.
https://youtu.be/GogPPT3ePGQsiameze and others have spent much time in IRC discussing the how to aspect of some of this tech.
Potentially packaging the blockchain or transactions up in torrent type files/packages to be delivered to the first available p2p client
and passed via whatever p2p network is available first.
It's a matter of building the right team and community willing to devote time to the greater good, alternate communication channels
for the blockchain. As far as how many will use it... You can't think in terms of tomorrow only but in years to come. Alexander graham bell started with one telephone, look what we have now..