Can You Own a Star?

by hacker7639...July 6th, 2025
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Derry-Dee Mbata is the author of the book, "A Star in Space" Mbata looks at the rise of Spacecoin, the system that governs life beyond Earth. Mbata questions whether decentralization and digital permanence have made us more free or more isolated.

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In this lyrical piece of speculative fiction, a lone narrator living in orbit reflects on the rise of Spacecoin, the blockchain-powered system that governs life beyond Earth. As ownership expands to include stars and constellations, he questions whether decentralization and digital permanence have made us more free or more isolated.


I minted a star last month.

Dead center of Quadrant 9, near the rim of the darker belt over what used to be the Sea of Tranquility. Verified on-chain. Tokenized. Assigned a code that ends in -7734, which, if you flip upside down on an old-school calculator, kinda spells “HELL.”

Fitting, I guess. It’s mine now … a burning ball of gas, trillions of miles away, that I’ll never see without an orbital telescope and a fat enough Spacecoin wallet to rent access. I don’t know why I bought it. Maybe because it was available. Maybe because the DAO dropped a limited run.

Or maybe because we’re all just trying to feel something permanent in a world that updates every six seconds.

The Constitution of Space

Spacecoin isn’t money anymore.

It started as a utility token for off-Earth barter,very frictionless, zero-trust, latency-optimized, censorship-resistant. Back then, it was mostly for engineers and dreamers and crypto freaks who thought banks were evil and governments were jokes.

Now?

Spacecoin is law. It's identity. It's existence. You want to breathe? Spacecoin.

You want to access a node? Stake some.

You want to vote on whether the outer dome gets repaired this cycle or next? Lock your tokens and pray you’re not outvoted by bots. It’s not just currency.

It’s a constitution — forkable, decentralized, ruthlessly fair.

No presidents. No courts. Just contracts.

We Asked for Freedom. We Got Math

The dream was simple: no borders, no kings, no middlemen.

A world or a universe where everything ran on transparent code. And we got it, everything is a DAO now.

Your housing unit. Your food supply. Your oxygen recycler. Even your relationships if you're into tokenized soul-binding (don’t ask). Somewhere in the asteroid belt, there’s a commune run entirely by smart contracts. No leader. No rules. Just consensus.

It’s working which is exactly why I’m uneasy.

Because when everything is logical… nothing is forgiving.

The Ownership Illusion

I know what you're thinking.

"You own a star? That’s kinda cool."

Yeah. It is. Until you realize it doesn’t mean anything.

I can’t touch it. Can’t visit. Can't even describe the color, the metadata says “yellow class, mid-range.” Sounds like a discount wine. But it’s on-chain. Immutable. Permanent.

And for some reason, that permanence hurts more than it comforts. Because now I can look up and say, “That light is mine,” and it still doesn’t shine any warmer on me.

It’s like putting your name on loneliness and calling it property.

Everything Works Too Well

That’s the twist no one warned us about.

All the old systems broke. The banks, borders, bureaucracies and we replaced them with code. With trustless logic. With beautiful, self-executing smart contracts.

And they work. Oh, they work too well.

No more corruption, no more favoritism, no more crying at government offices while someone stamps the wrong form.

But also…

No more second chances, no more gut decisions and no more “just this once” because your hands were shaking and you couldn’t remember your private key.

Up here, the chain doesn’t care.

It confirms or rejects.

That’s all.

Stars Don't Answer Back

Some nights, I stare out the dome. Not at my star — I don’t even know where it is — but at the whole sky. It looks the same as before, but it’s different now. It's labeled. Tokenized. Fractionalized. Owned.

There’s a DAO right now trying to vote on whether we can “wrap” constellations into NFTs and trade them like zodiac real estate. Someone will win that vote.

They’ll write smart contracts for Orion. Mint governance tokens for Pisces, sell 10% of Sagittarius to a DAO in Dubai.

And I’ll still be here, in my pod, watching the sky burn silently wondering if we’ve made the universe smaller by trying to own it.

So… Can You Own a Star?

Technically? Yes.

Philosophically? I don’t know.

Emotionally? You tell me.

All I know is this:

We left Earth looking for freedom.

We found code.

We wanted meaning.

We found ownership.

And now we sit quietly, surrounded by stars we own, wondering why we still feel so far from home.



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