This article is part of the John Frusciante Challenge: 10 Articles in 10 Days. It is named after the legendary Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist, as he recorded 6 albums in 6 months during 2004.
If you think that this content doesn't make sense, probably you're right! I still hope you'll enjoy it though...

“Who owns the Moon?”
This question should have been addressed by the United Nations Outer Space Treaty: “Outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means.”
But apparently, no treaty prevents private appropriation. This is the loophole that Dennis Hope exploited already back in 1980, when he declared to possess the Moon as well as the rest of the solar system!
In the blockchain era the Diana team thought the same thing, just in a modern fashion: tokenize the Moon!

For sure an elaborated, trustless blockchain system has more authority than a self-declaration on a piece of paper.
The idea sounds brilliant and even noble to some extent:

• It aims to give all humans the chance to own a piece of Moon
• It aims to prevent great corporations to exploit the Moon
• It aims to create a completely new economy around our sole natural satellite

Two major flaws

However, I think that this idea has two intrinsic flaws.

1 - Protocol used

First of all, for this scope I would have used a configuration based on the ERC-721 protocol. For the laymen, the ERC-721 is an Ethereum token that is unique and indivisible. It has unique attributes that allow you to create the so called “crypto-collectables”. Examples of ERC-721 are the CryptoKitties or the Lambos you can purchase on War Riders.

Why using the ERC-721 protocol? Because you're going to divide the lunar surface into tiny portions (3,874,204,892 according to the Diana project), you have to deal with the fact that every area of the Moon is different from one another. You need to define who owns which portion of the Moon. Thanks to the ERC-721, you can give different attributes to every single token, like for example latitude and longitude of a given area on the Moon!

2 - Whales

Diana wants to go ahead of time in order to leave the Moon in the hands of the people. However, a tokenized Moon will soon fall prey of the whales.

Jeff Bezos will monopolize all the tokens in no time! His only opponent might be the Chinese government, which will skip the UN Treaty by setting up a private company which will hold the moon tokens on its behalf.
The Diana mission will work only if the UN issues a new treaty that will clarify Moon ownership and possibly will allow only private citizens to own portions of the satellite.
The Moon should then follow the same rules of a big public company in which non of the stakeholders can hold more than 5% shares.

Possible applications

If the anti-whales measures are implemented, the Moon tokenization could pave the way to incredible applications!

1 - Games

The main application I can think of is about games. Imagine a giant Risiko played over the Moon! It would be spectacular and would definitely make the all time biggest show on Twitch!

2 – Rental market

The citizens owning the Moon could rent their acres to space agencies eager to perform research or other activities.

3 - Mining

I'm not referring to the blockchain mining, but to the real mining.
The Moon could reveal as a massive source of Helium-3, the isotope to fuel the fusion nuclear rectors of tomorrow, for unlimited electrical energy! See the movie Iron Sky to this regard...
The Moon is also thought to hide massive reserves of water beneath its surface. Water is rapidly running out on Earth, so no wonder that the most important liquid will be soon the new gold. If you happen to buy the ERC-721 token placed over a water well, your children and grandchildren will be able to live without working!

4 – Stock exchange

The Moon has always fascinated human kind since the beginning of time. A token directly linked to the Moon would have such a mystical charm, such a cultural impact that it would immediately rise through all the ranks that even Bitcoin was never able to rise!
This means that Wall Street will be eager to list such a financial asset, from which an infinity of derivatives will follow.

What if?

If you tokenize the Moon poorly, it will be another ridiculous project on the blockchain.
If you tokenize the Moon incorrectly, the Moon will belong only to one “Amaz-ing” man and that will be sad...
If you tokenize the Moon properly, the impossibilities are endless!

Sources

https://www.coindesk.com/diana-a-blockchain-lunar-registry-attempts-to-tokenize-the-moon
https://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Preparing_for_the_Future/Space_for_Earth/Energy/Helium-3_mining_on_the_lunar_surface