FWIW this isn’t true, the $700 quintillion figure was an estimate of the total metal value (most of which would be iron) based on the asteroid being similar in composition to nickel-iron meteorites. As it happens we actually think it’s a fair bit rockier than that these days. There’d still be vast amounts of metal there but less than initially thought and it would be harder to mine and process with the extra rock.
Also the estimate was just multiplying the mass of each metal by its current market price, which isn’t how any of this works anyway.
FWIW this isn’t true, the $700 quintillion figure was an estimate of the total metal value (most of which would be iron) based on the asteroid being similar in composition to nickel-iron meteorites. As it happens we actually think it’s a fair bit rockier than that these days. There’d still be vast amounts of metal there but less than initially thought and it would be harder to mine and process with the extra rock.
Also the estimate was just multiplying the mass of each metal by its current market price, which isn’t how any of this works anyway.