Ultra-secure virtual money guarantees transactions across the galaxy

The quantum teleportation longer works experimentally with 100% reliability [Image: Hanson Lab / TUDelft].

Universal money

A new kind of money, more versatile and safer than the current crypto-coins, promises to give users the ability to make informed decisions that come at different times and places around the Universe, while still keeping savings even against attacks from future quantum computers - ours or from ETs.

The theoretical framework, dubbed "S-money," ensures completely uninterrupted and secure authentication and gives quicker, instantaneous responses, and more flexibility than any existing financial technology thanks to the combination of the power of quantum theory and relativity - speed of communication can create what Kent calls "relativistic economics."

In fact, the theory allows for commercial and financial transactions through the Solar System and beyond, without any time delays.


"It's a slightly different way of thinking about money: instead of something we have in our hands or in our bank accounts, money can be considered something that you need to dispose of at a certain point in space and time, in response to data which are coming from many other points in space and time, "said Professor Adrian Kent of the University of Cambridge, UK, who proposed the idea.

But trading on a galactic scale will have to wait for demand, with the first Earth-scale tests expected to begin later this year. Although "S-money" requires very fast calculations, Kent believes it may be feasible with today's computing technology.

Ultra-secure virtual money guarantees transactions across the galaxy

Competition with quantum money can intensify as quantum hard drives improve , which already hold data for several hours. [Image: Solid State Spectroscopy Group / ANU]

Quantum money

The structure developed by Professor Kent can be considered as secure tokens generated by communications between various points in a financial network that respond flexibly to real-time data around the world and "materialize" so that they can be used at the place and time the owner of the money requires. This allows users to respond to events faster than familiar types of money, both physical and digital, that follow space-defined paths, requiring a "shifting" time.

Virtual symbols can be negotiated securely, without waiting for cross-checking or verification along the network, eliminating any risk of double trading. This is done by taking advantage of quantum theory, more specifically quantum entanglement , that strange phenomenon which Einstein called " phantasmagoric action at a distance " and which allows two intertwined particles to influence each other instantaneously, whatever the distance the separate.

User privacy is maintained by protocols such as bit compromise, which is a mathematical version of a securely sealed envelope. The data is delivered from part A to part B in a locked state that can not be changed after it has been sent and can only be revealed when part A provides the key - safely guaranteed, even if either party tries to strike .

Other researchers have already developed theoretical frameworks, known as "quantum money", which are also based on the strange behavior of particles on the subatomic scale. While quantum money for real-world transactions may someday be possible, according to Kent, at the moment it is technologically impossible to keep quantum money safe for any appreciable amount of time, something that does not happen to your "S-money."

Now it is to wait for the result of the first tests. "We are trying to understand the practicalities and understand the advantages and disadvantages [of S-money]," said Kent, who patented the idea and intends to become the first pan-galactic banker.

Bibliography:  S-money: virtual tokens for a relativistic economy Adrian Kent  Proceedings of the Royal Society A  DOI: 10.1098 / rspa.2019.0170