Cryptosat: Bringing Blockchain to Space
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Cryptosat: Bringing Blockchain to Space
Cryptosat aims to provide satellite services for a wide range of blockchain projects.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insights
By aya, TechFlow
Blockchain technology and aerospace technology represented by satellites—one enables transparency, immutability, and decentralization, the other carries the romanticism of outward exploration.
How can these two concepts be combined?
Cryptosat proposes a new idea: providing satellite services for various blockchain projects.
Here’s a brief introduction to this project:
Project Overview
Cryptosat's mission is simple: they build satellites dedicated to serving blockchain projects, leveraging the physical inaccessibility of space to safeguard cryptographic protocols.
On March 16, the Cryptosat team conducted a series of experiments aboard the International Space Station (ISS), including performing cryptographic signatures on user data using keys generated and stored in space. As part of the experiment, they digitally signed messages referencing their official Twitter account.
Finally, they reposted replies to each such message on Twitter, including the digital signature of the user message and a cryptographic certificate generated from the signature.
On May 25 this year, they launched their first satellite—Crypto1. The satellite lifted off from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, riding atop SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket operated by Elon Musk into low Earth orbit.
Satellites and Blockchain
Launching satellites is typically seen as an extremely expensive and distant endeavor for most people. To address this challenge, Cryptosat proposes a novel solution: CubeSats.
CubeSats are miniature satellites built from off-the-shelf components. Over the past few decades, the cost of building and launching CubeSats into space has dropped significantly. Moreover, satellite costs are expected to continue decreasing with broader technological adoption. The inherent physical isolation of satellites, coupled with public communication channels, allows the tamper-proof and transparent nature of blockchains to also manifest within Cryptosat’s architecture.
This bold idea was first proposed by co-founders Michalevsky and Winetraub in a 2017 paper: Earth-orbiting satellites that are physically inaccessible could represent the future of protecting highly sensitive cryptographic secrets—such as key generation, zero-knowledge proofs, and trusted parameter generation for MPC protocols.
Such cryptographic protection is critically important for the security of the entire financial ecosystem—and holds even greater value within the blockchain and crypto space, which is entirely built upon cutting-edge cryptography.
In March, they also published an article outlining ZK-SNARK trust setup in orbital space, proposing ideas for securing the random elements generated during CRS creation.
Team and Funding
Founded in 2020, Cryptosat consists of three Stanford University graduates:
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Yan Michalevsky, former founder of Anjuna Security;
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Yonatan Winetraub, co-founder of SpaceIL—the organization that launched the first privately funded lunar mission in 2019;
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Gil Shotan, an engineer who previously worked on Google's self-driving car project Waymo.
Cryptosat has also partnered with Protocol Labs to bring new cryptographic primitives—Verifiable Delay Functions (VDFs)—into space. The team recently raised $3 million in seed funding, with participation from institutions including Protocol Labs, Dorahacks, and GOAHEAD Ventures.
Project Review
Cryptosat stands out both in terms of technical expertise and vision, using satellite technology to enhance blockchain security—where security stems from the current physical inviolability of space.
However, whether this highly futuristic integration will gain market acceptance remains to be seen.
Nonetheless, we look forward to seeing more innovative developments from the team in the future.
Project Links
Twitter: https://twitter.com/cryptosat
Website: https://www.cryptosat.io/
Medium: https://medium.com/@yan_of_earth
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