[MR4D]

So, I was in a conversation with someone who made an interesting comment.

He said we have a gold reserve and that makes sense, but if we become interplanetary, then you don’t want to pay to ship gold to Mars. Crypto solves that issue. The reserve will last well into the future so preparing now makes sense.

Unique take to be sure, but sharing because it was interesting.

[_annum]

The United States needs to establish a crypto reserve to prepare for a permanent Martian settlement with an independent economy 100 years from now? It's difficult to think of something less relevant to the well-being of the American public.

[antifa]

You can really tell it's just another pump-n-dump scheme because no reputable science enjoyer would read/write a novel about this in sci-fi except to describe a dystopia or satire.

[lavezzi]

> Unique take to be sure, but sharing because it was interesting.

I think the most interesting point in this is the level in which supporters have stooped to provide 'justifiable' arguments.

[Sanzig]

Having gold-equivalent reserves seems like the very last thing that Martian colonists need to worry about. I would suspect "how do we survive in an extraordinarily hostile environment with no hope of rescue when something goes wrong" is a higher priority one to solve.

[quantified]

How will the colonists pay for their oxygen? This colony will not be cheap, they'll be expected to earn.

[johnnyanmac]

This level of thinking is exactly why we're so far away manned exploration of the solar system. Early colonists absolutely cannot treat these missions as business expenses.

[quantified]

Every colony is expected to earn, this is the history of colonialization.

For Mars colonization, I was also speaking to the nature of its backers.

[ToucanLoucan]

> Every colony is expected to earn, this is the history of colonialization.

The problem with a Martian (or even lunar) colony is that... there's not actually anything valuable there. So a traditional "earning" colony is basically off the table, and aside from the technological hurdles, is probably why the drive to do it just hasn't been there. Of our closes celestial neighbors, well, Venus is just useless entirely what with how hostile the atmosphere is to our... everything, Mars is quite far away, several months via current technology, and it's incredibly, devastatingly thin atmosphere and lower gravity means any given colony will require a lot and I do mean a LOT of support from us here on Earth to function. Colony isn't even really an appropriate word here, as colonization implies some level of living at the destination and between the lack of breathable atmosphere, lack of any and all flora, and lack of water, you're basically requiring regular supply drops or everyone is just dead.

Really the moon is far better in the transit aspect, which since you're supplying your colony from here, is a huge data point. And even then, what does that colony then do? The moon doesn't have much of anything we're really hurting for, certainly nothing to make up for the exorbitant cost of mining there. I could see it as a valuable location for low-G construction of larger, further-going spacecraft I suppose? But in terms of "expected to earn," I think either the red planet or our friend in the sky is going to be pretty dire.

[johnnyanmac]

When your colpny's line of support is a bubble om your head and a single sensitive means of transport, you don't want people thinking in terms of monetization. We can save taxation for the 24th century if and when we manage to terraform mars and make planatery transport not cost trillions of dollars.

But yes, I agree with you on the backers. That's precisely why I don't think they will be the ones landing Mars.

[namaria]

How will they pay for gold or bitcoin??

[ToucanLoucan]

See, I want to agree with you, but at the same time we are actively burning our only habitable planet because the rich refuse to give up any money. So I guess, if we only send poor people to live on Mars, this will probably hold? But if there's one rich guy up there he'll probably kill every last person with him if you don't make sure he gets paid.

[Eddy_Viscosity2]

It solves the problem? The problem of shipping gold to mars? This is as made-up a problem as you get. Might as well say "What if advanced aliens come to Earth who already use crypto based currencies and the only way to stop them from destroying the earth is to pay them in ripple. So basically we need the reserve to save all life on earth."

[7e]

Mars lies just at the edge of the asteroid belt. There is plenty of gold in the belt.

But to state the obvious: the Martians can keep their gold in Earth banks, just like Russia used to keep its gold in UK and Swiss banks. Many European countries still do. Even on Earth, nobody prefers to move gold around.

[antifa]

> then you don’t want to pay to ship gold to Mars

yeah it would cost more to ship it to Mars then it would cost to get a team of the most expensive contractors you can find to dig it out of the surface of Mars with their bare hands.

Not to mention the absurdity of thinking crypto would be more usable over interplanetary internet than VISA/ACH, or that such a society on Mars, when more than a research outpost, would benefit at all from being economically bound and gagged to a distant terrestrial currency.

> Crypto solves that issue.

Asteroid mining solves the issue. Gold will be functionally unlimited. Cryptocurrency will be long forgotten in history books after the first self sustaining space colony exists.

[Topfi]

> … that issue.

Maybe I am missing something, but what issue were they alluding to?

Yes, databases (anything digital for that matter) are easier to transfer over large physical distances. Why would there be a need to ship or transfer anything in that manner, considering we as earth bound humans have stopped moving around large quantities of gold for purely financial purposes quite some time ago?

Besides being a damning inditement of whatever interplanetary society they were envisioning, I’d be interested in what their view on modern day precious metal trading as a whole is.

[dullcrisp]

Why not ship the gold to Mars?