Can Martians Buy Stuff at Walmart?

With Martian currency?

I have just finished reading a very interesting story about some people bidding Mother Earth farewell before a one-way voyage to Mars. Now I don’t know about you, but it makes me wonder.

The 100 Euro question

(Not Dollar because I’m writing from France, and also, because why not?)

When Mars gets colonized, will it have an economy on its own? How will people buy stuff there? You see, as soon as you start having different Martian colonies or cities, such questions will arise, whether we like it or not.

Will Martians retain their earthling bank accounts and access them through the Internet? Can we even assume the Internet will be available on Mars at some point?

The idea has the advantage of simplicity. However, it would mean a 5 to 20 minutes delay for any banking instruction sent to earth, and as much to get an answer back.

Imagine yourself paying at the local Martian Walmart with your earthling credit card. You will have to wait for 40 minutes before your transaction gets approved. A local banking landscape is thus necessary, not the least for the convenience of consumers.

Martian banks

The Martian endeavor being what we imagine it to be, it will require a financial effort unlike anything the world has known so far. This effort will need to be sustained for the first centuries of the adventure.

Independent local banks might not be able to cater for it. This means that the Martian banking landscape will have to be made of branches of well established earthling banks. These branches will be ultimately fueled by earthling taxpayers.

Fueled with Euros at least?

Nope.

Much as I would like it to be Euros, the Martian currency will be something else. For it to be stable and efficient, it will have to be backed by the economy of the mother planet, through a basket of stable currencies like Euros, US Dollars, or Pound Sterling.

It will be blockchain based. But not the vulgar Crypto on everyone’s mind. Nope, it cannot be an empty shell subject to geeky speculations. It will have a real economy behind it. The economy of a couple of planets, nothing less.

The alternative is a system of dual non-exchangeable private-sector currencies, the EloCoin and the BezzoCoin. I don’t think that would be a good idea…

Let me know what you think in the comments.

Let the board sound

Rabih