One Small Step for DeFi, One Giant Leap for Art
The Greeks: To Space on a Cubesat
Astute observers of this project have been speculating for a while, but today we can finally reveal what fans of “The Greeks” have waiting for: Geometric Energy Corporation (GEC) is announcing society’s first blockchain venture into space. The DOGE-1 lunar mission will launch a cubesat which is to be adorned with imagery generated by token holders. Anyone interested in a Superbowl ad in space? How about a marriage proposal live-streamed around the world? Read on.
“The Greeks”, ERC-20 tokens, are named after the Greek letters: Gamma, Kappa, Rho, Beta and Xi. Echoing the Greeks, who depicted their champions in the night sky, GEC is giving anyone with a cryptocurrency wallet the chance to leave a record of themselves in space. The final frontier just became borderless.
The five utility tokens are the gateway to generating space imagery. The tokens control X-position ($BETA), Y-position ($RHO), hue ($KAPPA), luminosity ($GAMMA) and time ($XI), giving holders of all five control over the imagery displayed on the side of the cubesat. Naturally, a larger holding of each of the tokens allows a larger number of pixels, colors and duration of display to be specified. To use a more modern analogy: $RHO and $BETA can be thought of as real estate, while $KAPPA and $GAMMA are the architecture, and $XI is the lease.
The promise of cryptocurrencies, DeFi in particular, has been to provide permissionless access to value, but much of the criticism directed at projects has been a lack of value. GEC is providing this sought-after utility through decentralized access to space displays. Where space technology was once the reserve of the few, GEC has extended its arm to the many. While this may seem an enigmatic goal alongside the other possible use cases of space-borne cryptocurrencies, it is very much in line with GEC’s ethos. According to CEO Sam Reid, GEC’s mandate is “transforming civilization”, and what better way to do so than to extend our cultural influence into orbit? We know it is possible to travel to space, but how will we value things once we live there? What does it mean to own something in space, and how can ownership be transferred over large distances?
Utility Tokens
The tradable ERC-20 tokens will seek to answer these questions through price discovery on the open market. Being utility tokens, trading can take as many forms as there are market ideas. Users could obtain $BETA, $RHO, and $XI, and act as real estate managers, leasing space on the cubesat surface for limited periods of time. Corporations looking to make an impact could obtain the $KAPPA, $GAMMA, and $XI required for time limited adverts to be displayed. Artists and designers could use $KAPPA and $GAMMA to create works of art, all while collaborating with other holders to host their display. Institutional interest will meet crowdfunding in a way never experienced before. The nature of the artwork will need to be within the confines of what can be placed on the satellite logistically, but the creative possibilities are still endless.
“Transforming Civilization” is the humble goal of Geometric Energy Corporation. And it seems Sam Reid is positioning himself to do just that. Few would consider the space industry as a stagnant field, but Mr Reid is focused on creating new marketplaces and economies in space as a means for innovation. Other space startups spend years trying to out-compete multi-billion-dollar companies with government contracts. But GEC’s strategy is different — out-manoeuvre the giants of industry using a model that only they have the agility to execute.
“There are newcomers who are disrupting space and making it accessible”, he said in a recent discussion panel, going on to say how smaller companies like GEC can exist in parallel to the tech giants such as Lockheed Martin and Boeing, “We definitely need these guys to continue… It’s not like these new companies are going to go get the contract off Boeing”. Staying true to this sentiment, much of the business of Geometric Space — the extra-terrestrial arm of GEC — centers around its Rideshare Program giving tech startups a foot in the door with cubesat technology and access to major launches. It’s a philanthropic venture that allows US and Canadian companies to reduce barriers to entry and enhance collaborative efforts. One such launch is the Geometric-1 Rideshare, that has been rumoured to have remaining slots available for purchase. The cubesat is therefore a natural platform for GEC’s next giant leap. Leaning on his background as a STEM mathematician, Sam Reid is turning his focus to bringing distributed data systems – the blockchain – into space. And in addition to the promise of orbital displays, one of these goals is to establish a means of securing satellite communications.
$XI – An enigma wrapping enigmas
Given that time is infinite, $XI utility token has a large supply. A benefit of this is the scope to explore other applications of the $XI token. A large portion of GEC’s research and development has been related to secure satellite communications, something that the blockchain lends itself well to. By providing an immutable ledger that is suited for transmission across large distances on multiple protocols, blockchains have provided an explosion of innovation around the internet of things. $XI token is looking to bring this utility to space.
The $XI token will function as a meta-oracle service, used for collating oracle data, or as compensation to oracles for the provision of quality data. This may initially be relatively simple metrics such as SATCOM data regarding temperature and location, but can expand to encompass the huge datasets being developed by networks of interlinked satellites. Earth and Lunar orbits are beginning to house the information networks of the future, and GEC is entering blue-sky (or blank space?) territory to firmly establish itself.
As a proof-of-concept of $XI, Sam Reid has delved into his mathematical interests to offer $XI for unsolved geometry problems. 100,000 $XI is available for the solution to twelve difficult geometry problems, and to a further three open conjectures. In addition, 1,000,000 $XI is being offered for any Clay Institute award of a Millennium Problem, making Grigori Perelman eligible for tokens after solving the Poincare conjecture in 2003. The idea is to bring the brightest minds together to focus on new technologies that may benefit mankind. “Running your own organization gets you to the place where you can have the right conversations,” said Sam. With GEC’s current offering, many more will be able to do just that.
A Final Note
Any skeptics should note that while the project is sensational, there is nothing of a gimmick about this: it is a clear demonstration that cryptocurrency is the only medium fit to transmit value in the 21st Century. It is the first social enterprise to leave Earth, and it plants a decentralized flag in a place where traditional finance cannot follow.
Feel free to follow the countdown to the SpaceX launch on GEC’s website: geometricenergy.ca, and to take part in “The Greeks” token purchase to access the cubesat, you can do so via five separate websites:
Dale Linney/6M, June 2021
