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Bitcoin is literally going to the moon

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In November 2021, Bitcoin will literally go to the moon. Through a collaboration between Astrobotic and BitMEX, a physical Bitcoin actually ends up on the moon. You may now be thinking, how come Bitcoin is only available in digital form? That is right! It is a physical currency where 1 Bitcoin is stored. As long as no one picks up the coin, this one physical Bitcoin will remain inaccessible to everyone. If it is picked up, the Bitcoin price will likely be extremely high. Of course, there is no real physical Bitcoin, as it exclusively exists in a digital form. However, this BTC has been turned into a physical coin.

Peregrine-1

This unique and valuable physical Bitcoin coin will go on the Peregrine-1 and will be Astrobotic’s first commercial lunar lander to be launched in November 2021. Astrobotic is a space robot company that aims to make space accessible to the world. The company’s line of lunar landers and rovers provide payloads to the moon for businesses, governments, universities, nonprofits and individuals. It is a giant leap in space travel, as it will be the first western soft landing on the moon since the Apollo missions of the 1960s and 1970s. Because of this, it might be possible that the Ripple price for example will rise a lot.

Bitcoin 2021 event

The announcement of a physical BTC going to the moon took place at the recently hosted Bitcoin 2021 event in Miami. It is a creative marketing campaign for BitMEX as a Bitcoin exchange and for Astrobotic. A unique physical Bitcoin coin to the moon marks a special and memorable event, of course. One side is devoted to Astrobotic and Peregrine-1, the other to crypto. The coin captures this historic moment and shows the current Bitcoin hashrate, the year, and a quote from Satoshi Nakamoto, the inventor of Bitcoin.

To the moon

The “to the moon” meme has been around for a while, which has also been used to describe the Ethereum price in the past. It seemed more like a matter of time before a cryptocurrency would actually go to the moon. But the launch of a physical Bitcoin coin is a good timing because Elon Musk announced earlier that he would like to send the Dogecoin to the moon or to Mars. But let’s be honest, Bitcoin was the first cryptocurrency and should actually be the first to reach the moon. Only one coin will be sent to the moon, but a series of limited edition Bitcoin-loaded commemorative coins will be made available on Earth before launch.

One way ticket

Astrobotic and BitMEX do not intend to bring back the physical Bitcoin coin. When the physical coin lands, it will remain on the moon until someone deems it worthy to retrieve it. At the moment this is not the case since the current price does not outweigh the cost of a trip to the moon. But if Bitcoin continues to rise in value and space flights become cheaper, there may come a time when it will be interesting to take a flight to pick up the physical BTC.

Story by Stefan Veldman 

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