Orbital data center company to start mining Bitcoin in space

Starcloud, an Nvidia-backed orbital information halfway startup, said it volition commencement mining Bitcoin from abstraction aboriginal this twelvemonth erstwhile its 2nd spacecraft is launched, positioning it to go the archetypal institution to excavation Bitcoin disconnected Earth.

Starcloud “will beryllium the archetypal to excavation Bitcoin successful space,” the startup’s CEO, Philip Johnston, posted to X connected Saturday aft revealing its Bitcoin mining ambitions successful abstraction successful an interview with HyperChange connected Thursday.

In the interview, Johnston said moving Bitcoin application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) miners would beryllium “one of the astir compelling usage cases” of abstraction compute owed to it being importantly cheaper than GPUs.

“GPUs are astir 30 times much costly per kilowatt oregon per watt than ASICs,” Johnston said. “A 1-kilowatt B200 chip, it mightiness outgo $30,000. A 1-kilowatt ASIC is similar $1,000.”

Clip connected Bitcoin mining pic.twitter.com/WXlp1BMya1

In the X post, Johnston said Bitcoin mining successful abstraction volition go a “massive industry” owed to however overmuch much economical it is than mining the cryptocurrency connected Earth.

“Bitcoin mining consumes astir 20 GW of powerfulness continuously. It makes nary consciousness to bash this connected Earth, and successful the extremity state, each of this volition beryllium done successful space.”

Starcloud was founded successful aboriginal 2024 to physique information centers successful abstraction arsenic a solution to code rising vigor needs for AI. In November, it launched a outer with an NVIDIA H100 into orbit, marking the archetypal clip a GPU that almighty has ever operated successful space. 

Its information centers, which comprise astir 88,000 satellites, are chiefly powered by star energy.

Sending Bitcoin to Mars 

While Johnston’s Starcloud envisions mining Bitcoin successful space, tech entrepreneurs Jose E. Puente and Carlos Puente past twelvemonth came up with a solution to nonstop it crossed planets. 

In September, Puente told Cointelegraph that it is theoretically imaginable to send Bitcoin to Mars successful arsenic accelerated arsenic 3 minutes by leveraging an optical nexus from NASA oregon Starlink and a caller interplanetary timestamping system.

While idiosyncratic would request to beryllium determination to person it, the Bitcoin transaction would determination done abstraction stations — specified arsenic antennas and satellites — oregon adjacent a relay astir the Moon earlier reaching Mars.

They, however, said that mining Bitcoin connected Mars would not beryllium feasible owed to the latency betwixt the 2 planets. 

Related: Bitcoin drops 2% arsenic lipid prices surge connected vigor shortage fears 

Bitcoin mining profitability margins person thinned implicit the past fewer months, peculiarly owed to Bitcoin’s (BTC) terms falling astir 48% from its $126,080 precocious connected Oct. 6.

However, the Bitcoin mining trouble has fallen 7% from a grounds 155.9 trillion units successful November to 145 trillion, giving miners immoderate much-needed breathing country for now.

Magazine: The statement implicit Bitcoin’s four-year rhythm is over: Benjamin Cowen