Elon Musk Considers Using Bitcoin On Mars Despite Constraints Of Slow Transactions

JAKARTA - Elon Musk initially rejected the idea of using Bitcoin (BTC) as a currency on Mars. But the CEO of Tesla and founder of SpaceX may have just opened his mind to this, although only a few.

In space on X (formerly Twitter) entitled "ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF (ARKB) Approved," with ARK Invest CEO Cathie Wood, Musk initially rejected the use of Bitcoin as a currency on Mars due to the significant transaction completion time.

"It seems reasonable to use cryptocurrency types on Mars; you can't use Bitcoin because reconciliation takes too long." This comes in Musk's continuous vision of building a colony on Mars by 2050, arguing that humans should develop into a multiplanetary species to survive.

However, after thinking hard on its own, Musk concluded that it might indeed be possible considering the Earth's distance is only eight minutes of light from the sun while Mars is about 12 minutes of light, although it will still face obstacles.

"Maybe you can use Bitcoin so far, but it's hard to use it a lot on Mars," he said. He added a possible need for local networks on the planet.

"Mars can be about twenty lightmins. So, it's not easy, there has to be something local on Mars," he said. After this, Musk agreed with Bitcoin core developer Matt Corallo that the slow transaction speed of Bitcoin could be overcome through a local Lightning network.

Bitcoin currently takes up to an hour to secure transactions as its blockchain collects transactions into blocks of 10 minutes, requires confirmation of six blocks before transactions can be completed.

However, Blockstream CEO Adam Back is more optimistic about the idea, with or without a local Lightning network in its current form. He replied in Space X's thread, stating, "12-22 light minutes are not a problem with the block of 10 minutes."

In April 2023, data from Glassnode showed that the Bitcoin Lightning Network was much cheaper to use than other inheritance payments.

According to Glassnode, the cost of shipping value via the Lightning Network is 0.0029%, which is approximately 1,000 times cheaper than the Mastercard or Visa payment processor.

Meanwhile, there is speculation whether Musk will implement cryptocurrency usage options on X, as he plans to turn them into "aplications of everything."

According to a report in January 2023, two people familiar with the X plan said that the payment feature could accommodate cryptocurrencies if the opportunity arose.

On August 5, 2023, Musk replied to users on X, stating that he "would never" launch crypto tokens on the platform.