Nikolas Sargeant
Starcloud, an Nvidia-backed orbital data center startup, announced plans to begin mining Bitcoin from space later this year when its second spacecraft launches, positioning the company to become the first to mine the cryptocurrency off Earth.
The company's Bitcoin mining ambitions center on economic advantages of application-specific integrated circuit miners in space versus terrestrial operations. Running Bitcoin ASIC miners represents "one of the most compelling use cases" of space computing due to significantly lower costs compared to graphics processing units, according to company statements.
"GPUs are about 30 times more expensive per kilowatt or per watt than ASICs," Starcloud explained. "A 1-kilowatt B200 chip might cost $30,000. A 1-kilowatt ASIC is like $1,000." The substantial cost differential makes specialized mining hardware more economically viable for orbital deployment.
Bitcoin mining in space could become a "massive industry" due to superior economics compared to terrestrial operations. "Bitcoin mining consumes about 20 gigawatts of power continuously. It makes no sense to do this on Earth, and in the end state, all of this will be done in space," the company stated.
Starcloud was founded in early 2024 to build orbital data centers addressing rising energy needs for artificial intelligence applications. In November, the company launched a satellite carrying an NVIDIA H100 GPU into orbit, marking the first time hardware that powerful has operated in space. The data center constellation, comprising approximately 88,000 satellites, operates primarily on solar energy.
Bitcoin mining profitability margins have compressed recently, particularly as Bitcoin's price has fallen nearly 48% from its $126,080 October 6 high. However, Bitcoin mining difficulty has declined 7% from a record 155.9 trillion units in November to 145 trillion, providing miners temporary relief amid challenging market conditions.
