TechFlow News, March 9: According to a Cointelegraph report, Starcloud—a startup developing orbital data centers backed by Nvidia—announced it will begin mining Bitcoin in space aboard its second spacecraft later this year, potentially becoming the first company to mine cryptocurrency beyond Earth.
Philip Johnston, CEO of Starcloud, stated that running Bitcoin-specific application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) miners in space would be “one of the most compelling use cases” for space computing, as their cost is significantly lower than that of GPUs. He noted that, per kilowatt-hour, GPU costs are approximately 30 times higher than those of ASICs: a 1-kilowatt B200 chip may cost around $30,000, whereas a 1-kilowatt ASIC costs only about $1,000.
Johnston believes space-based Bitcoin mining will evolve into a “massive industry,” arguing that mining on Earth is “pointless” and that ultimately all mining activity will shift to space. Reportedly, Starcloud’s data center network comprises approximately 88,000 satellites, primarily powered by solar energy. The company was founded in early 2024 and successfully launched a satellite equipped with NVIDIA H100 chips into orbit last November.
