The asteroid belt contains all of the raw materials necessary for sustaining itself and its development independently, with the possible exception of helium-3 for fusion reactions. It probably has the deuterium for that form of fusion as a fallback, but generally prefers helium-3 from the moon.

For different entities to settle transactions among themselves beyond the Earth/moon, they must rely on proof-of-work generated there. They can’t participate, only verify. This means that while the asteroid belt can and does manufacture hashing hardware, it can’t benefit from mining. Asteroid belt colonists pay fees that accrue to Earth alone.

To be able to benefit from the fees, the asteroid colonists need a chain with a longer block time. They could spin up their own shitcoin for this, but that would suffer all the known problems of spinning up shitcoins. Lengthening the block time can be accomplished with a soft fork alone.

Regarding sidechains, the problem with any sidechain is the peg and its credibility. A pegged shitcoin is still a shitcoin, and so in my novel, I plan to presume that they’re just as ineffective and undesirable as I find them today.

The overarching tension I want to explore is the Earth-centric concentration of power imposed by the 10-minute block time, and what freedom and decentralization mean in the context of a burgeoning, spacefaring civilization.