this post was submitted on 01 Jun 2025
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Futurology

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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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[–] chocosoldier@lemmy.blahaj.zone 31 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (2 children)

Here is an archived snapshot I found of the Fox article

At the bottom it says the story originally ran in The Sun, here is a snapshot of that page as well.

I followed the other user's snarky DDG link and the first hit is this article from Smithsonian Magazine that appears to be about the same story.

Finally, here is a far less sweaty page from NASA about the actual object, though the composition of metals isn't discussed in detail.

After skimming all this I kinda feel like it's a stretch to say that asteroid is "made of gold".

[–] GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca 15 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I think "enough gold to completely destroy the gold industry (as a precious metal)" is close enough to "made of gold" for me.

[–] Rubisco@slrpnk.net 5 points 5 days ago