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]

~
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).

[joniboini]

In that sense adding ASIC mining to the project is just a means to generate additional revenue while operating in space.

But how much revenue is available for this? I kinda believe marketing/testing ground is the bigger reason for pulling a stunt like this. Especially when there's no guarantee they'll be the one to find new block. It's cool tho. Although we're probably decades away from individual launching their space device.

[ABCbits]

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.

I doubt bringing ASIC together would give them more profit. I didnt find price per KG for this Starcloud, but based on a website i found, cheapest one today is "New Glenn from Blue Origin" that costs about $2000 per KG[1]. For comparison, "best" non-liquid cooling ASIC is AntMiner S23 Immersion which have about $9200 and weight 17150g[2]. With today's price, the cost to bring the space alone is 3+ times higher than cost of the ASIC itself.

[1] https://orbitalradar.com/space-economy/launch-cost-trends
[2] https://www.asicminervalue.com/miners/bitmain/antminer-s23-immersion-442th

[Vod]

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.

Yes - the reality of space would mean distances we cannot reach.  The orbits need constant solar exposure - L1 is 2/3 the way to the moon, and L2 is 1.5 million km.  In order to get there for a repair mission you need to carry 3x the fuel (press the gas, turn around, press the gas, do the repair, press the gas, use atmosphere to brake)  Our current leading tech (Starship) is 90% fuel (Liquid Oxygen ~78% of the propellant, Liquid Methane ~22%) and that's just to get to orbit and land.

Imagine for a second we live in Elon's world and we can visit these satellites at will - they are going to be constantly breaking down under radiation.   We handle that on earth with parity bits but in space you will get multiple errors on multiple bits at once.   Just add shielding?  Nope, adds more mass and more 3x the fuel.

[wapwapwendy]

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.
link
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.

Mining Bitcoin in space is something I never thought I'd see... I'm curious how profitable it will be after factoring in the cost of launching and maintaining the equipment. Cheap solar energy alone doesn't guarantee profit.

[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.
link
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.

Mining Bitcoin in space is something I never thought I'd see... I'm curious how profitable it will be after factoring in the cost of launching and maintaining the equipment. Cheap solar energy alone doesn't guarantee profit.

It's not a profitable venture, I'm sure. But the media impact of this event could yield a good advertising profit.
I'm also curious how long it will take for ASICs to break down in space. The longer they operate, the longer the project will have observers and traffic.
This could be a good learning experience for future projects.

[NotFuzzyWarm]

Off the shelf mining ASIC's will quickly fail in space due to the high radiation levels there. Space qualified hardware is specifically made for the operating conditions found there by using different materials (usually Ge, GAs or SiC) for the semiconductors instead of silicon along with fairly large node sizes which are more resistant to bit flipping caused by cosmic rays and energetic particles.

[FP91G]

Off the shelf mining ASIC's will quickly fail in space due to the high radiation levels there. Space qualified hardware is specifically made for the operating conditions found there by using different materials (usually Ge, GAs or SiC) for the semiconductors instead of silicon along with fairly large node sizes which are more resistant to bit flipping caused by cosmic rays and energetic particles.

Starcloud, Inc. is a United States-based company that designs, builds, and deploys data centers in space using proprietary technology. In November, 2025, Starcloud launched a satellite with the first NVIDIA H100, which enabled it to train the first AI model in space.
In March 2026, Starcloud became the fastest unicorn in Y Combinator history, hitting a $1.1bn valuation just 17 months after completing the program. In August 2026, Starcloud raised an additional $250M at a $2.3Bn valuation, with NVIDIA, Cisco, and Benchmark investing in the round.
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This satellite is still operational and orbiting at an altitude of approximately 500 km.

[Due_Condition]

Will Starcloud publish the mining results once the ASICs are operating in orbit? I would be interested in the measured hashrate and uptime over several weeks, alongside the launch announcement. That would give this thread something concrete to follow.