Hong-Kong-based Asteroid Ltd. (Asteroid) has launched one of the most-anticipated ICOs this year in their mission to establish a blockchain-based mechanism to oversee claiming rights to more than half a million asteroids already identified within Earth’s celestial orbit.
Using a public distributed ledger made possible by blockchain, Asteroid will act as a formal registry platform where individuals, companies, and nation states can stake their rights to claim any of the 600,000 asteroids spotted and tracked since 1980, all located within our inner solar system.
The mineral resources industry
Mineral resources are geological materials that are becoming increasingly vital for developed and developing nations. Sometimes called industrial minerals, due to their heavy use in manufacturing, construction and energy industries, minerals have a high commercial value due to their unique physical and chemical properties.
As more advanced technology becomes available, demand for the minerals is rising. Mineral mining, worth several hundred billion dollars annually, is a huge economy for countries like Russia and the US, and is the major GDP contributor for others like Kazakhstan.
However, minerals are a non-renewable resource and they are already scarce. The so-called “rare earth elements” that the Japanese refer to as “the seeds of technology,” for example, are present in minute amounts that are necessary for some of the everyday items used by modern civilisation: touch screen phones, computers and other personal devices.
China, which produces 90% of the world’s rare earth minerals, believes it will run out of some as soon as 2025.
Asteroid mining: a vast territory of untapped wealth
According to NASA, the Asteroid Belt holds a vast amount of mineral resources, estimating their value to be over $700 quintillion – in other words, if this wealth were distributed equally to every living person today, each would have over $100 billion.
While NASA itself lacks the technology to mine asteroids, it is already planning a mission to an asteroid called Psyche 16, it estimates that this single asteroid would be worth $10,000 quadrillion (that’s 10 trillion) in metal.
But the questions arise: who would own these asteroids, and how would anyone be able to place claims on them?
Asteroid’s BlockClaim® to democratize space
According to The Outer Space Treaty ratified by the UN in 1967, it was declared that outer-space would be for all of humankind and that no nation state or sovereignty may claim it as their own. In so many words — asteroids belong to everyone.
Asteroid Ltd. Proposes a unique implementation of its proprietary mechanism called BlockClaim® that will be to space what domains are to the Internet. It will be deployed worldwide to record mining claims in terrestrial and non-terrestrial space environments, using smart contracts based on the Ethereum protocol to automate mining claims defined by datasets.
This decentralized solution will ensure true democratization of space, allowing any individual, corporation or nation state to make claims easily and efficiently. The immutability and security of each BlockClaim® ensures that they are stored permanently on blockchain. Utilizing ASTR® tokens (ASTRCOINS®), users can search and pay registration fees.
As ASTR® will be used to secure BlockClaims®, while significant currency usage will theoretically provide liquidity and appreciation of its value. Each Blockclaim® will be secured via a token called ASTR® (ASTRCOIN®) within the Ethereum platform. This will ensure significant usage of the ASTRCOIN® currency and, along with consistent registrations, will give liquidity and growth in the value of the currency.
About Asteroid Ltd.
Founded in November 2015 at Cyberport in Hong Kong, Asteroid Ltd.’s innovation team provides the foundation for the technical, financial, creative and marketing expertise vital to the stability and financial viability of the project’s technology.
Unique not only in its passionate vision to explore future frontiers, the Asteroid ICO is an opportunity for many to turn their lifelong dreams into reality. The increasing demand and market trends are highly suggestive that asteroid mining may very well become mainstream in the near future.
The Asteroid ICO is open to the public from November 21st to December 18th, 2017, featuring a scaled bonus provision for its duration. Only 100,000,000 tokens will be issued. Upon completion of the ICO, ASTRCOIN® will trade on the open market.
To learn more about Asteroid, visit the website, read the whitepaper and follow Asteroid on Twitter.
Asteroid Ltd. is the source of this content. Virtual currency is not legal tender, is not backed by the government, and accounts and value balances are not subject to consumer protections. This press release is for informational purposes only. The information does not constitute investment advice or an offer to invest.