If mining asteroids becomes commonplace is any element rare enough to be money?

[Anon136]

One of the reasons i bought bitcoin is because i was worried about the possibility of asteroid mining. I have been told that a single captured asteroid could potentially double the supply of gold or silver. This would make these elements essentially worthless as money. You wouldn't be strong enough to carry enough to buy something with them. So then my question is, if this were to happen would something like iridium or osmium be rare enough to still allow value to be portable even under these circumstances?

[LostDutchman]

One of the reasons i bought bitcoin is because i was worried about the possibility of asteroid mining. I have been told that a single captured asteroid could potentially double the supply of gold or silver. This would make these elements essentially worthless as money. You wouldn't be strong enough to carry enough to buy something with them. So then my question is, if this were to happen would something like iridium be rare enough to still allow value to be portable even under these circumstances?

That is a very good question and I have no idea.

My $.02.

[Lethn]

This is the thing a lot of precious metal advocates haven't really considered, gold and silver certainly are rare metals on Earth but you're correct, there are actually recorded cases of asteroids being found that contain trillions worth of metals in them. If this amount of metal flooded the market then these metals wouldn't be considered rare anymore and you'd have to look for something else that's rarer, but this is why I consider cryptocurrencies to actually be a very good for currencies, the only downside to them really is you need an internet connection and they aren't physical.

Precious metals work great for now but if we get the hang of space flight they'll be about as common as copper, unless of course we discover and entirely new material we haven't seen before that's rarer than gold or some other metal.

[Anon136]

This is the thing a lot of precious metal advocates haven't really considered, gold and silver certainly are rare metals on Earth but you're correct, there are actually recorded cases of asteroids being found that contain trillions worth of metals in them. If this amount of metal flooded the market then these metals wouldn't be considered rare anymore and you'd have to look for something else that's rarer, but this is why I consider cryptocurrencies to actually be a very good for currencies, the only downside to them really is you need an internet connection and they aren't physical.

Precious metals work great for now but if we get the hang of space flight they'll be about as common as copper, unless of course we discover and entirely new material we haven't seen before that's rarer than gold or some other metal.

i dont think crypto is a great solution either. crypto is great for moving value and for speculating, its a useful tool for a lot of things, but i dont think one of them is "savings". atleast not to me. Its not really rare. Someone can always invent a better crypto (cough nxt) but its just a matter of time before someone invents something better than nxt. bitcoin is rare in the sense that you cant make new bitcoin but not in the same way as a precious metal. you cant just copy gold and make DogeGold.

[Anon136]

we may have to shift to using isotopically pure elements.

http://www.curiousnotions.com/home/metals.asp

So what you’re looking for is an element that’s extremely scarce in parts per billion, and an isotope of it that’s of such a tiny proportion that the product of both numbers is the smallest of any earthly substance.

Osmium comes in seven stable isotopes, and among them osmium-184 is the rarest at 0.02%. That times the element’s 1.8 parts per billion equals about a half part per trillion. But as mentioned above, osmium’s not the nicest stuff to deal with. Plus, although you can correct me if I'm wrong, no one seems to have a creditable price for 184Os.

For a far more serviceable candidate we don’t have to look far. Platinum comes in stable isotopes 190, 192, 194, 195, 196, and 198. Among those, the scarcest is 190, whose natural occurrence is 0.014%. If platinum as a whole exists at 7.5 ppb in the earth’s crust, 190Pt would be 0.014% of that: 0.00105 ppb or about one part per trillion. Therefore, isotopically pure platinum-190 is the most precious metal in the world.

i wonder if there is a reasonable way of verifying the "isotopically pure" claim.

[EvilPanda]

Same thing with diamonds, there's a lot of them hidden below but we're not advanced enough to extract them efficiently.

[Anon136]

Same thing with diamonds, there's a lot of them hidden below but we're not advanced enough to extract them efficiently.

there are a lot of them above ground. diamonds arnt actually rare at all. that's a myth. the only reason they have such a high value is because the de beers diamond cartel has monopolized the supply and holds them off of the market inorder to artificially inflate the price.

[LostDutchman]

Same thing with diamonds, there's a lot of them hidden below but we're not advanced enough to extract them efficiently.

there are a lot of them above ground. diamonds arnt actually rare at all. that's a myth. the only reason they have such a high value is because the de beers diamond cartel has monopolized the supply and holds them off of the market inorder to artificially inflate the price.

Thank you for your 100% correct and on spot post!

My $.02.

[tkbx]

This is one of the things I love about Bitcoin. Something like gold is rare until we find more of it. Something like Bitcoin is rare until 1 != 1.
I love the idea of gold, but it's the 21st goddamn century, it can't be too long before we can make a serious profit either mining gold on other planets, moons, asteroids, etc., or creating gold.

[Bit_Happy]

Same thing with diamonds, there's a lot of them hidden below but we're not advanced enough to extract them efficiently.

there are a lot of them above ground. diamonds arnt actually rare at all. that's a myth. the only reason they have such a high value is because the de beers diamond cartel has monopolized the supply and holds them off of the market inorder to artificially inflate the price.

No longer 100% correct, times have changed:
The Incredible Story Of How De Beers Created And Lost The Most Powerful Monopoly Ever
http://www.businessinsider.com/history-of-de-beers-2011-12?op=1
...
But more recently, countries with enormous stockpiles of their own, like Russia, Canada and Australia, have refused to cooperate with the single channel system.

These problems, along with issues of flat prices, forced De Beers to switch up the company's strategy. In the last decade De Beers has moved away from rough-diamond supplying and controlling the entire industry, instead focusing on promoting its own brand of diamonds and retail stores.

[Anon136]

Same thing with diamonds, there's a lot of them hidden below but we're not advanced enough to extract them efficiently.

there are a lot of them above ground. diamonds arnt actually rare at all. that's a myth. the only reason they have such a high value is because the de beers diamond cartel has monopolized the supply and holds them off of the market inorder to artificially inflate the price.

No longer 100% correct, times have changed:
The Incredible Story Of How De Beers Created And Lost The Most Powerful Monopoly Ever
http://www.businessinsider.com/history-of-de-beers-2011-12?op=1
...
But more recently, countries with enormous stockpiles of their own, like Russia, Canada and Australia, have refused to cooperate with the single channel system.

These problems, along with issues of flat prices, forced De Beers to switch up the company's strategy. In the last decade De Beers has moved away from rough-diamond supplying and controlling the entire industry, instead focusing on promoting its own brand of diamonds and retail stores.

interesting info. one would think this would have effected the price more.

[Anon136]

This is one of the things I love about Bitcoin. Something like gold is rare until we find more of it. Something like Bitcoin is rare until 1 != 1.
I love the idea of gold, but it's the 21st goddamn century, it can't be too long before we can make a serious profit either mining gold on other planets, moons, asteroids, etc., or creating gold.

you know that its been done. man kind has created gold. the age old quest of the alchemists has been realized. its mind boggling.

[Bit_Happy]

Same thing with diamonds, there's a lot of them hidden below but we're not advanced enough to extract them efficiently.

there are a lot of them above ground. diamonds arnt actually rare at all. that's a myth. the only reason they have such a high value is because the de beers diamond cartel has monopolized the supply and holds them off of the market inorder to artificially inflate the price.

No longer 100% correct, times have changed:
The Incredible Story Of How De Beers Created And Lost The Most Powerful Monopoly Ever
http://www.businessinsider.com/history-of-de-beers-2011-12?op=1
...
But more recently, countries with enormous stockpiles of their own, like Russia, Canada and Australia, have refused to cooperate with the single channel system.

These problems, along with issues of flat prices, forced De Beers to switch up the company's strategy. In the last decade De Beers has moved away from rough-diamond supplying and controlling the entire industry, instead focusing on promoting its own brand of diamonds and retail stores.

interesting info. one would think this would have effected the price more.

I suppose the illusion of scarcity will take more time to wear off.
interesting info
Yes, I learned something new today...Wish I could get paid just to learn "stuff" 

[Anon136]

Same thing with diamonds, there's a lot of them hidden below but we're not advanced enough to extract them efficiently.

there are a lot of them above ground. diamonds arnt actually rare at all. that's a myth. the only reason they have such a high value is because the de beers diamond cartel has monopolized the supply and holds them off of the market inorder to artificially inflate the price.

No longer 100% correct, times have changed:
The Incredible Story Of How De Beers Created And Lost The Most Powerful Monopoly Ever
http://www.businessinsider.com/history-of-de-beers-2011-12?op=1
...
But more recently, countries with enormous stockpiles of their own, like Russia, Canada and Australia, have refused to cooperate with the single channel system.

These problems, along with issues of flat prices, forced De Beers to switch up the company's strategy. In the last decade De Beers has moved away from rough-diamond supplying and controlling the entire industry, instead focusing on promoting its own brand of diamonds and retail stores.

interesting info. one would think this would have effected the price more.

I suppose the illusion of scarcity will take more time to wear off.
interesting info
Yes, I learned something new today...Wish I could get paid just to learn "stuff" 

you almost sort of can. by "learning stuff" about bitcoin i realized that i should buy it and it was about $12 at that time . granted it required that i actually buy them but that was super easy compared to the "learning stuff" part that allowed me to realize that i ought to buy them.

[EvilPanda]

"The tendency in diamond mining is to combine with smaller groups to form larger ones." Just like bitcoin mining

[sudoku]

It would cost more to mine gold on an asteroid than it would be worth.  Just as it costs more create gold in the laboratory than it is worth.  The scarcity of bitcoin is artificial.  It is quite easy to fork the blockchain and create a version of bitcoin with 1000000x the supply.  The true value of bitcoin is the discovery of distributed concensus protocol which makes bitcoin possible.  This discovery enables a whole lot more than just bitcoin currency.  When people start to apply this discovery in earnest, it will change the world.

[GigaCoin]

One of the reasons i bought bitcoin is because i was worried about the possibility of asteroid mining. I have been told that a single captured asteroid could potentially double the supply of gold or silver. This would make these elements essentially worthless as money. You wouldn't be strong enough to carry enough to buy something with them. So then my question is, if this were to happen would something like iridium or osmium be rare enough to still allow value to be portable even under these circumstances?

it's true actually, there is alot of evidence of abundant Gold, silver and iron in Asteroids.

[tkbx]

This is one of the things I love about Bitcoin. Something like gold is rare until we find more of it. Something like Bitcoin is rare until 1 != 1.
I love the idea of gold, but it's the 21st goddamn century, it can't be too long before we can make a serious profit either mining gold on other planets, moons, asteroids, etc., or creating gold.

you know that its been done. man kind has created gold. the age old quest of the alchemists has been realized. its mind boggling.

But it can't be profitable yet or gold would be nearly worthless. I'm worried about when it is profitable.

[Anon136]

It would cost more to mine gold on an asteroid than it would be worth.  Just as it costs more create gold in the laboratory than it is worth.  The scarcity of bitcoin is artificial.  It is quite easy to fork the blockchain and create a version of bitcoin with 1000000x the supply.  The true value of bitcoin is the discovery of distributed concensus protocol which makes bitcoin possible.  This discovery enables a whole lot more than just bitcoin currency.  When people start to apply this discovery in earnest, it will change the world.

we arn't talking about guys in space suits with pick axes here. we are talking about someone buying up a big desert somewhere and vaporizing it on entry in the atmosphere above his property and then harvesting it with a big machine like a spice harvester from dune. or something else novel like that. try to use a little more imagination.

yea all that other stuff sounds good. im a bitcoin speculator myself, i just dont pretend that its "savings".

[Anon136]

This is one of the things I love about Bitcoin. Something like gold is rare until we find more of it. Something like Bitcoin is rare until 1 != 1.
I love the idea of gold, but it's the 21st goddamn century, it can't be too long before we can make a serious profit either mining gold on other planets, moons, asteroids, etc., or creating gold.

you know that its been done. man kind has created gold. the age old quest of the alchemists has been realized. its mind boggling.

But it can't be profitable yet or gold would be nearly worthless. I'm worried about when it is profitable.

oh yea they made like a couple of atoms of gold for a price of hundreds of thousands of dollars. it would cost like a billion or a trillion times world gdp to make a single coin like that. i just think its awesome that someone out there is a true legitimate alchemist. alchemy is real and alchemists exist! mind boggling!