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Comment by mc32 | Hacker News Reader

How would this get divvied up? Someone corrals this thing, tows it into some kind of earth orbit, then auctions it off by the ton. How do they get it to the customer? Re-entry vehicle or something else like shielding ton ingots in special thermal tiles and have it crash into deserts somewhere?

Imagine if copper wire were replaced with cheaper gold wire?

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Gold conducts worse than copper. (It's the #3 best conductor) Copper is the #2 best conductor. The one metal that conducts better than copper is Silver.

A heavy asteroid might have a lot of Silver in it for all we know.

The property of gold that I like the most is that you can hammer it into such a thin film that it is transparent to some wavelengths of light..

Hilarious (and a bit scary) to think that in the near future a random company could haul a massive gold asteroid to Earth and completely destroy the global economy.

Why would it destroy the economy?

Probably similar to how the Spanish conquistador's precious metals haul from the New World decimated the economy of Spain: massive supply/demand imbalance.

Except that we are not 400 years ago when money was gold.

A better analogy would be if they towed back an asteroid full of $100 bills.

"Now if they find an asteroid that is made out of Bitcoin, that will be economically significant." -Matt Levine

I assume the grandparent is making a (quite funny) joke about destroying the global economy by virtue of the delivery of the asteroid destroying the Earth.

>destroy the global economy

Yeah, that wouldn't happen. Though maybe it would bring down the cost of certain scientific equipment. Countries like India would probably suffer since they "invest" heavily in gold.

> destroy the global economy

destroy the *gold mining economy

Bugger the economy, if you can move asteroids that large around, you have planet-destroying energy at your disposal. And more military power than any nation state - comply with our demands or accept this kind gift of a reentry-speed 10-ton block of gold through your ceiling...

I assume you would circle a town you’re about to invade, and then smush it with your gold asteroid.

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