Quote Originally Posted by Tom Kalbfus View Post
A computer can be hacked, however precious metals are made in a supernova. Copper, silver, gold, and platinum are either there or not, and they are a handy form of treasure. One million credits in platinum coins would weigh 20 pounds or 9 kilograms. If you wanted to buy a Starship, say a scout/courier with platinum, you would need Cr42,258,000 or 42,258 platinum coins which would weigh 380.322 kilograms, probably in the form of 38 ten kilogram bars.
Well, new news -- gold is mostly made in neutron-star neutron-star collisions, not supernova.

We saw one using a gravitational telescope, pointed a photon telescope at it, and saw a bloom of gold. This was great, because the math for how it was made in supernova was coming up short, and this was proposed as an alternative source.