Artemis-Induced Proof-of-Work Collapse: How Lunar Nuclear Deployments, Light-Speed Consensus Latency, and Planetary Cleavage Shatter the Bitcoin Monetary Thesis

Abstract: Advocates of decentralized cryptocurrency and off-world industrialization assert that the Artemis program and commercial lunar extraction will enable extraterrestrial Proof-of-Work (PoW) mining, establishing Bitcoin (BTC) as the reserve currency of interplanetary civilization. This monograph refutes this technological doctrine by establishing the thermodynamic, relativistic, and geophysical causal chain through which the Artemis architecture triggers the systemic collapse of the Bitcoin network. We establish four interdependent collapse vectors: (1) Relativistic Light-Cone Drag: An immutable round-trip vacuum latency of Δt_RTT ≈ 2.56 s between Earth and Moon inflates the lunar orphan rate (P_orphan ≥ 0.43%) by 17×, lowering the selfish mining threshold to α ≤ 0.33 and forcing permanent chain divergence; (2) Vacuum SMR Thermal Trapping and Planetary Cleavage: Deploying megawatt SMRs in a vacuum without convection forms a 480 K subterranean bubble in super-insulating regolith (k ≈ 1.5 × 10^-3 W/(m·K)). Thermoelastic stress concentration (σ ≈ 328.5 MPa) exceeds tensile thresholds, nucleating runaway Rayleigh-wave cleavage in the Moon's undamped, high-Q lithosphere; (3) Terrestrial Energy Cannibalization: Emergency mobilization for Artemis cryogenic fuel synthesis (LH2/LOX) invokes Defense Production Act powers, terminating grid power to terrestrial PoW mining and evaporating ≥ 85% of global hashrate; and (4) Difficulty Retargeting Death Spiral: Under the discrete 2,016-block serialization trap (Uekizan), block times expand to τ > 83.3 min, requiring four months to retarget, causing global mempool OOM crashes, total liquidity freeze ("abon"), and Delaware Caremark fiduciary liabilities.