Hypothetical Problems concerning the Theory of Relativity on Cryptographic Currency Implementations
This is a theoretical and incremental exploration of extending cryptocurrency systems to interstellar scales, relevant for future space colonization and economic planning.
The paper investigates whether a single cryptocurrency can function across the entire universe, addressing physical limitations like the speed of light that hinder information transfer over vast distances. It explores this theoretical problem inspired by Paul Krugman's work on interstellar trade, without presenting specific results or numbers.
Bitcoin has demonstrated there are many security improvements applicable to normal currency. As the human race expands and we colonize other planets, we have to consider how we are going to extend integral parts of of society, and that includes our currency system. Information transferring does not scale well with very large distances, entirely due to physical limitations. For example, there is a maximum speed that any information can travel, and it cannot be faster than the speed of light. In this paper we take these physical limitations into account to give treatment to the following question. Can a single crypto-currency be used across the entire universe? Trivially many currencies can be used with exchange rates but we will try to avoid this as our solution. The idea of this paper was inspired by a paper titled "The Theory of Interstellar Trade" by Paul Krugman, a Nobel Economist.