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Lab-grown diamonds have helped diamond prices plunge 60%, and former monopolist De Beers is in crisis mode. One day asteroid mining will do the same for gold. (futurology.today)
submitted 1 week ago by Lugh@futurology.today to c/futurology@futurology.today
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Diamond prices are down 60% since a 2011 high, and they are still falling. It's not all down to lab-grown diamonds, demand is down too, especially in China.

No one can lab-grow gold yet, so its rarity and scarcity protect its value, but that will end too. It's just a question of when. China launched an asteroid touch-down mission this week, which will make it the 4th country/region to do so, after Europe, the US & Japan.

How soon will it be feasible to mine asteroids? Who knows, but a breakthrough in space propulsion might mean the prospect happens quickly when it does. It's possible gold has twenty years or less of being high value left.

The $80 Billion Diamond Market Crash Leaves De Beers Reeling

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[-] Zacryon@feddit.org 4 points 1 week ago

There are many many more materials than just gold that could be extracted from asteroids.

But sure, establishing the infrastructure to make it commercially viable is a huge investment and won't be commercially viable for a while. (Think about missions like Hayabusa that cost hundreds of millions to bilLions, but retrieved "just" a couple of gram of material.)

[-] Regrettable_incident@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago

I suspect asteroid mining won't be profitable unless we are able to use the materials to build stuff in space. It costs so much to launch stuff into space that a ton of say iron is going to be worth much more there than on earth. Whether we'll ever reach that stage is anyone's guess but I hope so.

[-] bountygiver@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Just need to make sure the mining machine is durable enough and can launch itself from asteroids, because launching from asteroids with their low gravity is a lot easier than from earth, so a single earth launch can mine from multiple asteroids and send stuffs back.

[-] Zacryon@feddit.org 1 points 1 week ago

Time to make Space Elevators real.

this post was submitted on 01 Jun 2025
404 points (99.5% liked)

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