Living in Cuba, I’ve seen firsthand how hard it can be to run or use Lightning reliably. Electricity is unstable, mobile data is expensive or censored, and hardware is often outdated or scarce. While Lightning is amazing in theory, in practice it can be difficult to depend on it 24/7 here.

So I’ve been exploring and testing alternative ways to move Bitcoin under these constraints. A few promising ones:

📦 Partially Signed Bitcoin Transactions (PSBTs) via SD cards or USB — useful for offline peer-to-peer transfers. No internet required.

📠 SMS-based relays — using basic feature phones and gateways to broadcast signed transactions when internet isn’t available.

🧾 Bolt12 invoices with static QR codes — works better in low-connectivity setups for receiving payments without needing a live connection.

🛰️ Blockstream Satellite + radios — not easy to set up, but it’s a censorship-resistant option for syncing blockchain data without ISP access.

🔁 Manual circular economies — using paper wallets, verbal passphrases, and trusted face-to-face exchanges to bootstrap usage without needing apps or wallets.

I’d love to hear from anyone else living in restricted or resource-poor environments: What Bitcoin tools or hacks have worked for you when Lightning isn’t an option? We need more solutions for places where infrastructure can’t be taken for granted.