Starcloud’s CEO says the company plans to mine Bitcoin in space using satellites packed with ASIC miners in low Earth orbit. The startup has already shown it can run a powerful Nvidia H100 GPU in orbit, and now wants to turn that space compute into hash power.
What Starcloud Is Actually Planning
Starcloud is a U.S. startup building orbital data centers that run on constant solar power and use the cold of space for cooling. After launching its first satellite, Starcloud‑1, with an H100 GPU on board, the company now plans to launch a second spacecraft carrying dedicated Bitcoin mining ASICs.
CEO Philip Johnston said in a HyperChange interview that the firm remains focused on its satellite constellation, but will “also” include Bitcoin miners on the next mission. He believes Starcloud can become the first company to mine a coin in space if the launch and hardware work as planned.
The company has filed an application with the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to operate up to 88,000 satellites as orbital data centers. Within that network, some capacity could power AI workloads, while a portion would mine Bitcoin using space‑based solar energy.
Why Bitcoin Mining in Orbit Might Make Sense
Johnston argues that ASIC miners are better suited to space than high‑end GPUs because they are lighter and much cheaper per kilowatt. Reports citing Starcloud say a mining rig costs around $1,000 per kilowatt, versus about $30,000 per kilowatt for H100‑class GPU setups. Lower hardware costs matter when launch prices still run hundreds of dollars per kilogram.
Space also offers nearly constant sunlight in low Earth orbit and extreme cold around minus 270 degrees Celsius. That combination can reduce energy and cooling costs compared with land‑based data centers, which pay for power 24/7 and run complex cooling systems. In theory, faster signal travel in a vacuum could even shave a bit off block propagation times, which might reduce orphaned blocks on the Bitcoin network.
Starcloud’s broader bet is that if you solve energy and cooling in orbit, the same infrastructure can serve both AI and mining demand. Bitcoin, in its view, is a natural early use case because miners already seek out the cheapest possible energy and tolerate remote locations.
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