Earlier this month, blockchain startup Blockstream announced that its satellite messaging application programming interface (API) was launching on Bitcoin’s mainnet. Now, one enterprising bitcoiner has used this platform to beam the U.K.’s proposed Brexit deal into space.The application allows users to beam data into space, which can be downloaded by anyone with the appropriate receiver. Users can pay for the service using the Lightning Network.In a post published on crypto review platform How to Buy Crypto, crypto researcher Richard Gargan provided a description of his experience with Blockstream’s satellite application and how he used it to beam the full text of British Prime Minister Theresa May’s proposed EU withdrawal agreement into space. He followed the manual process (detailed here) of transmitting data to the blockchain.In the post, Gargan explained that he first converted May’s proposed agreement into a .txt file. From there, he split the file (which had a size of roughly 820 kb) into 82 separate pieces of 10 kb each. (He had to divide the file this way because the satellite’s transmission limit is 10 kb.)Gargan then uploaded the files one at a time. He reported having to pay 0.00000604800 BTC for a single file — the fees for sending the file plus an additional fee for using the Lightning Network.Gargan ended up spending a total of 0.000495936 BTC (worth about £1.49 or $1.96) to transmit the full document to the bl...
