I really don’t know anything about BitCoin. This seems kind of neat.

Part of amateur radio is that no transmission may be encrypted except radio control craft. Are they circumventing this rule?

I though long and hard about this. Encryption is only allowed in radio control of models or from the control station of a satellite. This is not really encrypting communications so I doubt it would be against those rules. I’d think it would be against the no business conducted rules before the no encryption rules.

The block chains are at their most basic just lists of bitcoin transactions. (I know it’s more complicated than that) While cryptography is used to create and authenticate bitcoins and their associated transactions the block chains are distributed in plaintext. It’s not like there is a key exchange over the air and an encrypted data stream created, it’s simply updated lists of where (which wallet) the bitcoins should be.