Minerals to give energy, not crowns
I think, if you truly want to encourage people to deposit minerals, you should be giving out energy instead of crowns. You may say that "you can just buy energy with crowns" but energy isn't always going to stay the same price. Also, newer players may not even know about the market and the ones that do may still not use it. Also, if you have it give energy you could make some story about how minerals are created from the cores energy, and so when you harvest the minerals you extract the energy from it.
Har har... you really like playing for free eh Kojiden :P never gonna happen :)

I worked out the energy/energy market system before I even realised what you were supposed to do with minerals

Its an idea people like, but wont happen and trust me if it did minerals would be really scarce which means not a lot of new maps for us players.
This system is meant for players to make things according to their needs/liking, the crown and heat is just something extra..... giving ec is over kill.
Having this implemented would result in people just dumping whatever minerals they have into the gates. We like our organized gates.
--Rael
Never going to happen. Why? Because CE represents OOO getting money to run the game. They're already taking a hit with the 100 free ME every day, albeit a hit that is most likely worth it.
as much as i love it to happen i have to agree ppl will just dump random minerals for the sake of ce.
Nope...