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Nvidia-backed startup plans to mine Bitcoin in space this year
The Nvidia-backed startup Starcloud plans to begin Bitcoin mining in space later this year, once its second spacecraft is launched into orbit.
According to Starcloud CEO Philip Johnston, the company aims to become the first organization to mine Bitcoin outside Earth. He previously discussed the idea in an interview with HyperChange and later shared additional details on X.
ASIC vs GPU: economics drives the decision
Johnston says deploying ASIC miners in orbit is one of the most promising uses of space-based computing power. The main factor is cost efficiency per kilowatt of power consumption.
“GPUs are roughly 30 times more expensive per kilowatt than ASICs.
A B200 GPU with 1 kW of power costs around $30,000, while an ASIC miner with the same power costs about $1,000.”
Johnston believes space-based Bitcoin mining could become a massive industry. In his view, large-scale mining on Earth may become economically inefficient over time.
“Bitcoin mining consumes about 20 gigawatts of continuous power. Doing that on Earth is irrational — eventually a significant portion of this will move to space.”
From orbit to Mars
Starcloud, founded in early 2024, aims to build space data centers designed to meet the rapidly growing energy demand of artificial intelligence.
In November 2025, the company successfully launched a satellite equipped with an NVIDIA H100 GPU, marking the first time such a powerful processor has operated in space.
The company’s planned orbital infrastructure could eventually include around 88,000 satellites, powered primarily by solar energy.
Interplanetary Bitcoin transactions
Meanwhile, technologists Jose E. Puente and Carlos Puente have explored the idea of interplanetary Bitcoin transactions.
According to their calculations, sending Bitcoin to Mars could theoretically take less than three minutes, using:
- NASA optical communication channels or Starlink
- a new interplanetary timestamp system
Transactions would be routed through space relay stations — satellites, antennas, or a node located near the Moon.
However, mining Bitcoin directly on Mars is considered impractical due to the high signal latency between planets.
Mining conditions on Earth
While space-mining concepts are gaining attention, miners on Earth are facing difficult conditions.
- Bitcoin’s price has dropped nearly 48% from its all-time high of $126,080 recorded on October 6
- mining difficulty has decreased by about 7% from record levels
This slight decline in difficulty has somewhat improved profitability for existing miners.
AI perspective
Orbital mining raises an interesting legal question that the article does not fully address:
which jurisdiction applies to Bitcoin mined in space?
The 1967 Outer Space Treaty states that spacecraft remain under the jurisdiction of the country where they are registered. However, this does not automatically mean that taxation or financial regulations apply to cryptocurrency mined on that satellite.
There is also a technical challenge: satellites in low Earth orbit only pass over ground relay stations for short communication windows. This can create intermittent delays when broadcasting newly mined blocks to the Bitcoin network, which may significantly affect the real profitability of space-based mining.
See also: "Declining revenues forced Bitcoin miners to swap their crypto reserves for AI infrastructure."
