Modern portfolio theory struggles to account for lunar investments' unique risk profile. Traditional diversification fails when all space assets share common failure modes. The brutal truth is that early lunar investments will likely follow the 1 in 10 rule - nine failures for every spectacular success. This demands entirely new valuation models that account for technological readiness and regulatory uncertainty.
Investment timelines require radical adjustment. While tech startups measure exits in years, lunar projects may need decades. This creates a fundamental mismatch with venture capital's typical 7-10 year horizons, suggesting that only sovereign wealth funds and ultra-patient capital can play this game.
Conventional risk assessment tools break down when dealing with technologies that have never been tested off-Earth. The biggest risk may be what we don't know we don't know - the unknown unknowns of extraterrestrial operations. Portfolio construction must account for binary outcomes where entire asset classes could become worthless overnight due to technological breakthroughs elsewhere.
Rebalancing takes on new meaning when assets are literally on another world. Liquidity constraints could make lunar investments the ultimate buy and hold proposition - you can't exactly recall your mining equipment if market conditions change.
First-mover advantage carries unusual weight in space economics. Early infrastructure owners may extract monopoly rents, but technological leapfrogging could render entire lunar cities obsolete. The wildcard is whether space-based manufacturing creates products with properties impossible to achieve on Earth - this could justify astronomical investments.
Intergenerational wealth transfer takes literal meaning with lunar assets that may take generations to mature. Estate planning must now consider orbital mechanics - who inherits a crater that's only accessible during specific launch windows? Tax implications become surreal when dealing with extraterrestrial property whose legal status remains undefined.
The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 creates a legal gray zone where terrestrial property concepts break down. While it prohibits national appropriation, private ownership remains untested. We're essentially trying to apply medieval land tenure systems to an environment where property boundaries can't be marked and trespassing is physically impossible to prevent.
Enforcement presents unique challenges when your assets are 384,400 km away. What constitutes discovery of non-compliance when inspections require billion-dollar missions? Liability regimes become absurd when damage could involve entire orbital trajectories.
Patent jurisdiction gets complicated when inventions are made in lunar orbit. Does prior art include alien civilizations' potential technologies? Trade secrets face existential threats when industrial processes must be visible from Earth-based telescopes.
Encryption faces new challenges when quantum communication becomes necessary across interplanetary distances. Data localization laws become meaningless when your servers are literally in another world.
Customs inspections take on new meaning when goods transit through vacuum. What constitutes a border when your shipment orbits Earth sixteen times before landing? Trade sanctions lose teeth when alternative supply routes exist through cislunar space.
Filing deadlines become relativistic when dealing with light-speed communication delays. Audit trails face unprecedented challenges when transactions occur across multiple gravitational wells. The very concept of a fiscal year breaks down when sunrise occurs every 708 hours.