The question that you may or may not have ever asked; what currency will we use in space? PayPal is trying to answer this question by officially launching PayPal Galactic. It’s one of the problems that no one ever really seems to talk about, until now.
I often think about how people could soon be spending their vacation in a “space hotel” and how we could set-up shop on Mars and start building cites and growing our own food there but I never thought about how we would pay for things in these places. It may sound like crazy science fiction movie but I think it’s a great time to start figuring out these problems as space becomes more accessible.
As space tourism programs are opening space travel to ‘the rest of us’ this drives questions about the commercialization of space. We are launching PayPal Galactic, in conjunction with leaders in the scientific community, to increase public awareness of the important questions that need to be addressed,” -David Marcus, PayPal’s President.
Even if spending your vacation on Mars doesn’t happen during your lifetime, it doesn’t mean that it will never happen. It’s the way we are built as humans, we want to explore and push the limits of what we can do and where we can go, so space colonization is highly likely if not completely inevitable. One day, generations after us may need to study their history books to prepare for a test that focuses on the earliest settlers who came to Mars and built the first cities. Perhaps PayPal will be in those books as the pioneers who helped create the first universal space currency.
PayPal is currently working with the SETI Institute (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) to help bring this issue to light and hopefully make all of this happen. PayPal Galactic also has Buzz Aldrin talking about the issue, whom you can see in the video above.
So, What do you think about PayPal Galactic? Are we ready to talk about space currency?
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