A Interplanetary Currency

[giszmo]

• i could envision a central server at mars, that acts as a clearing station for all transactions.

The bitcoin network on mars would work as "clearing station" and could do all a central "clearing station" could provide as it knows no more or less about confirmations than a central one.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

I think there is actually no big problem with using Bitcoin on Mars. It just needs a bit of additional work:

• it's not always possible to communicate directly with mars. there is this big thing called "sun" inbetween! i.e. for a permanent mars base, we need additional relay satellites.
• i could envision a central server at mars, that acts as a clearing station for all transactions.
• double spends on mars and in parallel on earth are possible, but would be detected in less than half an hour.
• for the entire lifespan of bitcoin, the mining power on earth will very likely be  much higher than on mars. so, mining over there won't make much sense in the first place.

Once Mars becomes inhabited, there's always the option of its citizens starting a new currency based on the Bitcon protocol, only used on Mars with its value determined by the then Bitcoin exchange rate.

Then again, it's quite possible that no currency will be allowed on any planets that we Eathlings ever populate in the future.

[giszmo]

Then again, it's quite possible that no currency will be allowed on any planets that we Eathlings ever populate in the future.

Most likely the martians will force us to buy their currency. Fucking early adopters.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

Then again, it's quite possible that no currency will be allowed on any planets that we Eathlings ever populate in the future.

Most likely the martians will force us to buy their currency. Fucking early adopters.

In which case the Earthlings will conduct a 51% attack. I'm not racist or anything, but I've always felt like them damn Martians were always up to no good. Boycott Mars! Let's start a petition.

[Serith]

I am surprised no one remembered about this thread: Bitcoin Theory (Byzantine Generals and Beyond)

...

• Latency: There are three popular timing models, which describe uncertain rate of message propagation in networks. The simplest case is called "synchronous communications", and it's when every message arrives within a certain known time limit, Δ (delta). Any messages that take longer than this have “timed out” and you can count them as failures. Protocols for this model often proceed in discrete rounds. The part of Bitcoin that rejects blocks based on invalid timestamps, for example, is indication of synchronicity assumptions. The hardest model is “asynchronous,” where packets can take longer and longer and longer to arrive.
      A medium-difficulty (and mostly realistic) scenario is called “partially synchronous,” where temporary partitions may occur but are eventually resolved. In this model, you don’t use any explicit time parameters. A maximum time delay Δ exists, but it is unknown. Cynthia Dwork, Nancy Lynch, and Larry Stockmeyer won the Dijkstra prize for this 1988 paper, which turned out to be very useful. If you’ve ever dreamed of a Bitcoin mining colony on Mars, or wondered what would happen if the transatlantic fiberoptic backbone were suddenly severed, you are probably thinking about the partially synchronous model. The best possible results in this model are of the 67% (3f+1) variety, rather than the 51% (2f+1) variety. If even the 67% honest participants are able to survive a partition that splits them in half for an unknown duration, then an attacker with 33% could pretend (simulate) being on the other side of a partition and disrupt you at any time.

...

From his other thread:

...
- Global parameters (like 10 minutes) should not need to be hard coded, but instead should automatically adjust according to demand and availability.
...

...
My mission is to eliminate every last hard-coded global parameter in Bitcoin, so that it grows into an indisputably scalable and universal protocol."
...

So far socrates1024 didn't finish his theoretical work, I guess mostly because of lack of interest from other people due to little practical need. But personally I am fascinated with this stuff. 

[marcus_of_augustus]

So far socrates1024 didn't finish his theoretical work, I guess mostly because of lack of interest from other people due to little practical need. But personally I am fascinated with this stuff. 

socrates1024 has completed some portions of this work and afaik is still making good progress (from what I've read/discussed).

[robocoin]

I am afraid that Musk would force us to use PayPal^^
But I don't think I'll need money on mars, because I'd have paid Musk already millions before even entering the space ship to my new homeland.(talking about a 50y time frame here) And how can I set up my mars koi pond? The next big question is, what kind of laws will be applied there? My laws? Musks laws? Zimbabwe laws? The next country for large scale shadow banks? XD

[Rassah]

^^^ Depends on who gets there first. If NASA or a coalition of governments, then our laws. If some corporation that is mainly interested in mining or operating a low G space depot, then whatever corporate law they use.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

^^^ Depends on who gets there first. If NASA or a coalition of governments, then our laws. If some corporation that is mainly interested in mining or operating a low G space depot, then whatever corporate law they use.

And the race is on!

[Rassah]

I'm not sure that Icanhascheezburger Corp has a space program.

[MatthewLM]

^^^ Depends on who gets there first. If NASA or a coalition of governments, then our laws. If some corporation that is mainly interested in mining or operating a low G space depot, then whatever corporate law they use.

And the race is on!

The Bitcoin Foundation should join the race, to get bitcoin on Mars.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

This thread is no longer too far-fetched: http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-elon-musk-80000-mars-20121126,0,2580983.story

Musk has already mapped out an approximate number of people he imagines living in the Mars colony (80,000), as well as how much a ticket to Mars might cost--$500,000.

[grondilu]

This thread is no longer too far-fetched: http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-elon-musk-80000-mars-20121126,0,2580983.story

Musk has already mapped out an approximate number of people he imagines living in the Mars colony (80,000), as well as how much a ticket to Mars might cost--$500,000.

At least I agree with this:

« He added that it would be a fun adventure to watch, even if you aren't planning on going yourself. »

[Phinnaeus Gage]

This thread is no longer too far-fetched: http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-elon-musk-80000-mars-20121126,0,2580983.story

Musk has already mapped out an approximate number of people he imagines living in the Mars colony (80,000), as well as how much a ticket to Mars might cost--$500,000.

At least I agree with this:

« He added that it would be a fun adventure to watch, even if you aren't planning on going yourself. »

I'm not sure how far six million dollars would help SpaceX now, but assuming it would, their marketing director could consider pre-selling 1,000 seats now for the discounted price of only BTC500 (approximately $6,000 USD) each, with the following stipulations:

• All pre-sales are non-refundable and can not be transferred to another party.
• Base on the exchange rate reaching $1,000 USD:BTC1 at least once, regardless of the exchange rate prior to launch(es).
• A seat will be reserved in only your name or one of your children (even if not yet born).
• Must be able to pass the required physical prior to your flight.

I'm sure a few other caveats can be added to the list, but you get the gist.

Here's the best part for SpaceX. They can opt to sit on the coins and wait till the exchange rate doubles, thus having $12M USD to further fund their endeavor. The way they can help accelerate said doubling is by announcing their intentions, thus bringing more awareness to Bitcoin.

Worse case scenario for all those who purchase tickets would be that they would have bragging rights for a long time, along with receiving possibly some perks from SpaceX. I'm pretty sure there's at least 1,000 people in the world that would love those bragging rights, coupled with having a slim chance of actually being able to journey to Mars at the greatly discounted price.

~Bruno K~

[justusranvier]

I'm not sure how far six million dollars would help SpaceX now, but assuming it would, their marketing director could consider pre-selling 1,000 seats now for the discounted price of only BTC500 (approximately $6,000 USD) each, with the following stipulations:

Reminds me of this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_American_World_Airways#In_popular_culture

[Phinnaeus Gage]

I'm not sure how far six million dollars would help SpaceX now, but assuming it would, their marketing director could consider pre-selling 1,000 seats now for the discounted price of only BTC500 (approximately $6,000 USD) each, with the following stipulations:

Reminds me of this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_American_World_Airways#In_popular_culture

Time for a Mars Flight Club (MFC): http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/1989-09-03/features/8903010181_1_moon-flight-requests

[ShadowOfHarbringer]

As someone cooler than me said, "the speed of light sucks".

...until we invent sub-space communication.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subspace_%28Star_Trek%29

[01BTC10]

Elon Musk,  South African-American entrepreneur and inventor best known for founding SpaceX, and co-founding Tesla Motors and PayPal, said he wants to build a small colony of vegetarians on Mars — according to The Register.

http://www.policymic.com/articles/19636/mars-colony-spacex-elon-musk-wants-to-build-vegetarian-colony-on-mars

There is a spy reading this forum 

[bitstarter]

Elon Musk,  South African-American entrepreneur and inventor best known for founding SpaceX, and co-founding Tesla Motors and PayPal, said he wants to build a small colony of vegetarians on Mars — according to The Register.

http://www.policymic.com/articles/19636/mars-colony-spacex-elon-musk-wants-to-build-vegetarian-colony-on-mars

There is a spy reading this forum 

I agree. Some sort of spy...

[grondilu]

« That was true of the English colonies [in the Americas]; it took a significant expense to get things started. But once there are regular Mars flights, you can get the cost down to half a million dollars for someone to move to Mars. Then I think there are enough people who would buy that to have it be a reasonable business case. »

If Elon Musk seriously considers that people should pay taxes in order to finance the dream of a few SF-fans to settle on a giant rock millions of miles away from any drop of liquid water or liter of breathable air, then I'm afraid that to me he is not sympathetic anymore.  At all.

Comparing Mars to America is just ludicrous.   America was not a desert.  There was air to breathe, water to drink and so on.  Hell, there were even some good-looking, bare breasted native women welcoming sailors with flowers and often offering their body on the beach.  And I'm not even joking.

I mean come on, the first land where Colomb arrived in America was the Bahamas:




And as a comparaison, this is where Elon Musk dreams of settling down:



Those people are completely delusional.

Does Elon Musk love large, arid deserts and wastelands??  We have some of those on Earth, no need to go to Mars:

Antarctica:


Sahara:


Pacific ocean (well ok that's not technically a desert but it's just as if.  Go try to live there all your lifetime if you don't believe me):



I'm pretty sure those places are paradizes when compared to Mars.