Orbital Data Center Startup to Mine Bitcoin in Space

Starcloud, an Nvidia-backed orbital data center startup, said it will begin mining Bitcoin from space later this year when its second spacecraft launches, positioning the company to be the first to mine the cryptocurrency off Earth. CEO Philip Johnston posted the claim to X after discussing the plan in an interview with HyperChange.

Johnston argued that running Bitcoin application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) miners is “one of the most compelling use cases” for space compute because ASICs are far cheaper than GPUs. He noted that “GPUs are about 30 times more expensive per kilowatt or per watt than ASICs,” giving the example that a “1-kilowatt B200 chip, it might cost $30,000.

A 1-kilowatt ASIC is like $1,000.” Starcloud was founded in early 2024 to build data centers in space to address rising energy needs for AI. In November it launched a satellite carrying an NVIDIA H100 into orbit, the first time a GPU of that class has operated in space.

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