Starcloud Space mining

[FP91G]

An Nvidia-backed startup plans to establish a Bitcoin mining operation in space before the year is out. Starcloud will fire up its cryptocurrency mining ASICs after its second spacecraft reaches orbit later this year. “We’ll be the first to mine Bitcoin in space,” claimed Starcloud CEO Philip Johnston in a recent interview with Documenting Bitcoin.
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Starcloud was founded in 2024 with the headlining goal of moving data centers to space. “As launch costs fall, data centers in space will leverage continuous solar energy and radiative cooling, rapidly scaling to gigawatts while avoiding permitting constraints on Earth,” reads its mission statement. The firm spells out its proposition in far greater detail in a white paper on its website, highlighting the appeal of training AI in space. However, the ample supply of solar energy is also great for cryptomining.

So, when Starcloud-2 reaches orbit, it will be tasked with raising some crypto-cash. In the embedded interview segment, Johnston said: “We’ll have some Bitcoin mining ASICs on the second spacecraft launching later this year.” At the time of writing 1BTC is worth roughly $86,000, quite a way down from highs several months ago.

[Karl_3000]

It will be good but not a new innovation at all. There are experimenting AI data machines that are orbiting in the space. For bitcoin mining, it will be a good thing.

But what I read about it in the past on the news but which is about AI is that repair may not be impossible. If the solar power miners are faulty, repairing it may be impossible.

[Mia Chloe]

An Nvidia-backed startup plans to establish a Bitcoin mining operation in space before the year is out. Starcloud will fire up its cryptocurrency mining ASICs after its second spacecraft reaches orbit later this year. “We’ll be the first to mine Bitcoin in space,” claimed Starcloud CEO Philip Johnston in a recent interview with Documenting Bitcoin.

Sounds interesting. For some reason anytime I see a post about mining the first thing that comes to mind is heat management and power. Anyways without being told since it's going to be in space it's logical that the power source will be solar as usual but I am particularly concerned about heat dissipation.

Since air is absent in space then radiation is the only logical heat dissipation method. How effective will that be in space? Remember even convection can be slow if not engineered properly.

[Alvin_talk]

I have a question though. What problem will putting bitcoin ASIC in space solve? Yeah, we could say there is unlimited supply of solar energy in space but how will this company even become profitable. Remember that this company will manufacture the spacecraft and other relevant things necessary to lunch to space.

If any hardware should fail in space they will carry out the maintenance which I think will consume more resources. And the funny part is satoshi is not gonna create special mining reward for you just because you decided to lunch ASIC in space. Maybe I'm missing something but I would really like to know how such initiative will benefit the company.

[Stalker22]

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Maybe I'm missing something but I would really like to know how such initiative will benefit the company.

I have the same feeling, it sounds like an expensive gimmick.  Yeah, you get the free solar power up there and radiative cooling takes care of the heat; however, the numbers just dont seem to pan out.

Space radiation will fry sensitive electronics unless they add heavy shielding.  And rocket launches cost a fortune.  Plus, sending data back to Earth creates lag.  If a mining rig breaks, nobody is flying up to fix it.  which means the costs alone will be more than enough to wipe out any profits.

I still need to read their whitepaper, but from what I have seen so far, it looks like a PR stunt.

[OgNasty]

It will be good but not a new innovation at all. There are experimenting AI data machines that are orbiting in the space. For bitcoin mining, it will be a good thing.

But what I read about it in the past on the news but which is about AI is that repair may not be impossible. If the solar power miners are faulty, repairing it may be impossible.

Bitcoin miners fail at a pretty insane rate too compared to typical datacenter hardware.  Maybe that has gotten better over the years, but I still don't think it is on par with GPUs, where repair will also be an issue.  Making matters worse, Bitcoin mining hardware doesn't have as long of a useful lifespan as GPUs...  At least mining hardware has stopped evolving at an insane rate, so using solar and no cooling will make them much cheaper to operate.  I doubt it will ever cover the launch cost before the hardware dies though.  Maybe if they were manufacturing on the moon and shooting satellites with a slingshot it would make sense.  Something tells me SpaceX will get there first.

[ABCbits]

Maybe I'm missing something but I would really like to know how such initiative will benefit the company.

I would guess it's either for,
1. Marketing purposes.
2. Some testing of their infrastructure on space, since AFAIK Bitcoin ASIC is cheaper and less complex than actual server.

Unless their service is really cheap, only company and government who have requirement their server isn't physically reachable or can be accessed without earth infrastructure (such as fiber cable under the sea) who may be use their service.

[Alvin_talk]

I would guess it's either for,
1. Marketing purposes.
2. Some testing of their infrastructure on space, since AFAIK Bitcoin ASIC is cheaper and less complex than actual server.

I think I'm beginning to see a sense in the project though. From the OP and from their official website, I see they are majorly into solving ai and cooling crisis, with the aim to move data centres to space. Meaning that the ASIC mining operation in space might just be a complimentary project. Probably, the company has already covered for most expenses involved through its main project. In that sense adding ASIC mining to the project is just a means to generate additional revenue while operating in space.

[FP91G]

I am very interested in cooling technologies for ASICs in a vacuum. Although it is cold in space, the cooling system still operates according to the laws of physics.
Building the cooling system will not be as simple a task as it seems at first glance.

Key Components:
The External Active Thermal Control System (EATCS) is the primary permanent active heat rejection system on ISS. It acquires, transports, and rejects excess heat from all U.S. and
International Partner modules except the Russian modules. The EATCS contains two ammonia coolant loops, which cool equipment on the S0, S1, and P1 truss segments. Capable of rejecting
up to 70kW, the EATCS provides a substantial upgrade in heat rejection capacity from the 14kW capability of the Early External Active Thermal Control System (EEATCS).