By
Godfrey Benjamin
April 12th, 2024
The Diana blockchain project strives to put the moon on a distributed ledger enabling everyone to own a slice of the lunar body to avoid monopoly from nations and well-funded corporations.
It has been 50 years since Neil Armstrong became the first human to step on the Moon. In honor of Armstrong’s ‘small step,’ a company has decided to take a ‘giant leap’ for blockchain. On the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing, Diana is launching a ‘lunar registry.’ The blockchain startup aims to place the lunar surface on a distributed ledger.
This new project aims to offer collective ownership of Earth’s only natural satellite. Diana will divide the Moon into 3,874,204,892 cells that will be encoded on a blockchain using a 3-word address. The Proof of stake in this “cadastral map” is fully represented by two tokens, Dia and Mond.
After the launch of the Diana blockchain, the new startup aims to create a decentralized autonomous organization. Eventually, it will develop an exchange to build an economy around the Moon. Dia is a native token that is scheduled for distribution upon registration. The token will be exchangeable with mond which is intended for transactions.
The registration costs are expected to increase with more tokens being sold. That will “boost” the tokens’ value for market participants thus preventing speculation. 50% of the tokens are set to be publicly available. Around 2% will be reserved for the development team and the founders. The rest will act as a reserve.
Interestingly, tokens will be held in “noun.verb.noun” addresses. For instance, “i.am.yourfather, diana.love.BTS, and armstrong.land.Moon” are some of the given examples.
The primary objective of this project is, allegedly, to:
“Secure the possible right of man to the Moon to propose a solution to ‘who owns the Moon.’”
A lunar registry may secure access to the Moon as it is apparently becoming clear that governments may exploit space for its wealth of resources:
“The Diana project aims to clearly define the possible rights of mankind to the Moon, given the increased possibility of ownership disputes, through collective registration.”
The Moon’s Dark Side
The Diana project’s white paper quotes Article II of the UN Outer Space Treaty:
“Outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means.”
However, the founders of this project are quick to point out that the treaty does not discuss anything about “private ownership” or parceling of the solar system. They note that multiple sovereign countries like China and the capital-rich organizations including Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin are preparing to explore and maybe monopolize humanity’s shared heritage.
Diana’s leads think this next-gen space race will eventually lead to the question of ‘who owns the Moon.’ Due to the increasing probabilities of ownership disputes, Diana aims to provide tokenized ownership of the Moon. That will give a chance for everyone to get a slice of the lunar surface.
The development team hopes to establish a Together Moon Foundation as part of the project’s roadmap. They will then appoint an international and space expert defence team that will eventually “develop the biz model for Moon possession.”