No offense, but you sound like someone who doesn't really understand the technology.

A TX record is signed, which proves that only I wrote it. It does not immediately have to become part of the "consensus ledger" i.e. blockchain. All I have to do is not spend the same money twice, and I can keep local records. Once the net comes back up, everyone can enter in their TX records manually and let the network figure out the rest. Any attempts to spend the same money twice would be prevented unless you somehow managed to spend from the same wallet in both fractions of the bitcoin network, which seems like it would be hard to pull off.

Yes there are people building real world offline transactions. See the whole API: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Raw_Transactions Typically they use this API for offline cold storage wallets.

Any offline transaction which is spec'ed with JSON-RPC doesn't pass my apocalypse test.

I'm sorry dude, but if the bombs are flying and buildings burning, just admit it: Bitcoin is not a suitable currency.

> but if the bombs are flying and buildings burning

And state issued currency that could be worthless after a civil war or invasion would be better? Technically you could argue that bitcoin, being not issued by a government or controlling entity and possibly still in use in less volatile parts of the world is more likely to retain its value, as would a cold-storage BTC wallet hidden until afterwards when the internet is back.

However if you are thinking along the lines of of gold, silver and gems, then yes, bitcoin can't compare .

>However if you are thinking along the lines of of gold, silver and gems, then yes, bitcoin can't compare .

I would add the dollar to that list as well.

And yet somehow you think that the existing currency/banking network (which is still a network, and still travels over either telephone lines or the Internet, mind you) would somehow be immune to the apocalypse. Dream on.

Your best bet then is probably gold.