S. Korean firm Diana finds a novel way to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing-- a project to register who owns what of the planet Earth's sole satellite. And, of course, it uses the blockchain.
Currently a UN Treaty lists the moon as a common heritage of mankind, and thus not owned by any country. However the moon holds potentially "tremendous" resources, and sooner or later competition for the ownership of the moon is set to kick off between certain countries and companies. Enter the Diana Lunar Registry, a blockchain-based register complete with decentralised app designed to “clearly define the possible rights of mankind to the moon, given the increased possibility of ownership disputes, through collective registration.”
But how does the Lunar Registry work? Essentially, Diana has divided the moon into individually-sized hexagonical cells (for a total of 3874204892 cells) using a Goldberg polyhedron algorithm. The moon has both visible and invisible sides, and the Diana Moon Registration System covers the visible side, making around 2 billion visible cells. Anyone can participate in the Diana Moon Registration System, and participants can assign addresses for the selected registration area or even transfer it to 3rd parties.
It all sounds rather far fetched, but governments are already looking into how to exploit the moon. The 2015 US Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act (CSLCA) encourages private space development, and in 2017 Luxembourg passed a bill allowing ownership of resources mined in outer space by private companies. But will entities with the capability to head to the moon and back respect the blockchain-based system created by a company in S. Korea? Only time will tell.
